FINAL WHISTLE: Ian Bell

You can call him Scottish again. You can have your hill back, too. The Daily Mail's answer to a Nuremberg rally will have to be postponed for another year, barring an improbable upsurge of interest in the US Open. That's where the smart money on Andy Murray will be going. But it's not the same, is it?

You did your best to pretend to like him. You struggled loyally to pass the kid off as another Nice-but-Tim. You granted him honorary citizenship and even "forgave" him for a perfectly rational little joke - much of the world says "anyone but England", in case you hadn't noticed - about football. So near and yet So what?

Our Andy didn't actually deserve to beat the American Andy, not on the day. To his great credit, the Scot took the fact, and the loss, on the chin. You could tell that the match was slipping away from him as those American Werewolf impersonations became scarce. But he did not once surrender his dignity. That was impressive and important.

Murray does tennis, not charm. Despite all those sponsorship deals he is not what you would call media-friendly. Given the choice between winning and being cherished by Little England he would not, I think, hesitate. I am not even convinced that Wimbledon is the biggest issue in his life. And that is precisely why he will win the thing, soon enough.

He survived the hype, and that is no small achievement. He did not, to my eye, buckle under the ridiculous pressure, or the sensationally stupid questioning. He has matured at a speed unusual in a very rich 22-year-old. It says something for his character, his origins, and his relationship with that absurd money pit, the British tennis establishment.

Murray is his own man. He was unfailingly polite amid the hysteria last week, but his detachment went deeper than simple professionalism. He is, of course, "not English", and British only when it suits those who despair of the Lawn Tennis Association's efforts to unearth the Great Home Counties Hope. Against Roddick, nevertheless, he gave the impression of a man trying to get on with the job while the SW19 crowds indulged their own, peculiar obsessions.

"Roddick breaks the nation's heart," said one of the London papers yesterday. That's what you call an unconsciously revealing statement, and on all sorts of levels. Leave aside this "nation" of which they speak. Murray hates losing - the resentment that fuels the born competitor is at the core of his being - but the evidence says his heart remains intact, despite Friday's disappointment. He does not lend that organ to someone else's chauvinism.

Did anyone really believe he was being driven by a patriotic desire to become the first British man to contest a Wimbledon final since Bunny - yes, Bunny - Austin in 1938? Would he be fussed, particularly, if he happened to win the US Open rather than England's heritage event? I think not.

For most of the week it was hard to decide whether the BBC cared more about a plastic roof than about Murray. The audience, famously, is not much interested in tennis for its own sake in any case. But Wimbledon has become horribly symbolic of the problem with sport in these islands: we care less, press and public, about the game at hand than we care, absurdly and endlessly, about the temporary involvement of a "Brit".

The fetish broke Tim Henman, a perfectly good tennis player of the second rank. Mercifully, Murray already seems alert to the danger. "Our Tim" will keep his distinguished record of four lost semi-finals, I suspect, for many long years while the Scot goes about his business around the globe with the icy passion that has become his trademark. Pragmatic yet driven: where was he born?

Against Roddick, Murray miscalculated. He tried to wear down an opponent who has been round that block more than once and who has, moreover, added to his repertoire of late. Having dealt with Juan Carlos Ferrero at speed, and in straight sets, Murray seemed content to settle in for a three-hour contest with the American. That was a mistake. And the better player duly lost.

It happens, of course. The Scot said as much beforehand. "I realise," he remarked after the Ferrero match, "that if I don't bring my best game I'm going to lose to guys like Roddick." His opponent, meanwhile, enjoyed the underdog's luxury. The important point, though, is that Murray was neither crushed, disconsolate or "broken-hearted" as a result. He has conquered his petulance and his slight case of arrogance. These days - and how refreshing is this in modern sport? - he just gets on with it.

Could he have beaten Roger Federer? He can match the Swiss, on a good day. He has done so more than once. The reality is, nevertheless, that this was never likely to be Murray's year. Yet when the older man departs the stage the record books will start to tell a different story. Men's tennis is about to become a contest between the Reluctant Brit and a certain Rafael Nadal. Someone's nation will be well rewarded.