First, a confession. I can’t watch Andy Murray’s matches. When he’s on court I find myself cowering, fingers over my eyes, like I used to as a child when the Daleks appeared on Doctor Who. With the possible exception of bullfighting, following Murray’s progress at Wimbledon is the most excruciating spectator sport ever devised. In my household we have iPlayer to thank for keeping our pulmonary systems marginally below life-threatening levels. We watched his five-set quarter final against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 24 hours after everyone else, and not just because we happened to be out that evening. Unless I am told the result in advance, the beauty of Murray’s game, its liquid athleticism and wit, are blotted out by anxiety.

After winning the men’s singles at SW19 again, Murray admitted he had been nervous. To watch the furrowed brows, thinned lips and tense posture of his audience these past two weeks, half of Britain shares that feeling. Most, however, have the nerve to follow him in real time. Even now that he is playing at the top of his game, I doubt I’ll ever be one of them. On Sunday I was called through to watch the last few points, when it seemed there was no chance he could lose. Catching up on the match later that evening was a pleasure incalculably enhanced by knowing the outcome.

I feel doubly ashamed, then, after hearing Murray say he is not afraid of losing. “I don’t mind failing”, he said, giving a glimpse of the new outlook that seems finally to be making his nagging, ill-founded self-doubt melt away. “Failing’s OK, providing that you’ve given your best and put everything into it.”

There could hardly be a less Scottish sentiment; most of us spend our entire lives terrified to fall short or be found wanting. This, too, from a man who is otherwise the epitome of the Caledonian psyche, for whom tolerating interviewers’ inane or intrusive questions has required years of endurance training as tough as his gym routine. The dogged determination, the dry and often misunderstood humour, and the outbursts of terrible self-criticism are familiar traits in people from these parts. Here, also, ambition and drive are often undermined by such microscopic examination of one’s feet of clay that a second career as a chiropodist surely beckons when the first implodes.

Yet by daring to court defeat Murray, it seems, has discovered the key to greatness. Despite the occasional outburst on court, when he roars and rages like a tiger whose T-bone steak has been stolen by a Highland terrier, he is now one of the most impressive athletes in the world. Quite possibly he is the finest Britain has ever known. Who else can make those who’ve never heard of Ronaldo seek out the sports pages before they’ve brushed their teeth in the morning? Or turn the house-proud into sloths who abandon the Hoover for a fortnight and feed their family from the microwave?

There was a time when Wimbledon was as exotic as Major League Baseball. As schoolchildren we would watch each game, memorise results, and replicate the matches in the field over the garden wall or on the town’s public tennis courts for the rest of the summer holidays. The idea Scotland could produce a Bjorn Borg or a Chris Evert was as unthinkable as that one of us could become US President. It is the least of Murray’s achievements that he has changed that for ever, but it’s no small feat. Those who used to think tennis was not for the likes of us have been emphatically proved wrong.

In so many ways, Murray’s success is a story of our times. For too long British tennis was seen as a gentleman’s sport, a sweatier, better-dressed version of golf. Perhaps it needed someone from a sober, conservative town in the heart of Scotland to shift perceptions. Dunblane has more Dr Finlays and Rev IM Jollys than sporting legends. That Murray’s origins are far from the usual suburban or home counties haunts of typical tennis hopefuls suggests it took a relative outsider to understand that while it remains a game of rigorous rules and decorum, it takes extraordinary grit and stamina to reach the top.

Murray is no iconoclast, but he is very much his own man. At the start of his career, his prickliness and perfectionism were more a flaw than an asset. Now, however, his individual cast of mind and uncompromising attitude are proving to be the making of him. He has had to struggle, and it shows. The tears he shed when he trounced Milos Raonic on Sunday spoke of the effort that had gone into reaching that pinnacle. He has failed often, and at the highest levels, losing in more Grand Slam finals than one likes to remember. In the 2012 Wimbledon final against Roger Federer, he did not hide how painful that was. His dejection at being beaten by Novak Djokovic in the Australian and French opens earlier this year was also palpable. Yet he has taken those losses and learned from them, like a true winner, a true warrior. Samuel Beckett would be proud of him. Indeed, his mantra could have been written specially for Murray: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

As part of that process, Murray’s once matchstick body has been transformed into an Olympian physique, a combination of power and grace reflected in the assurance, elegance and imaginativeness of his game. Almost as crucially, behind the most inventive style on the tennis circuit lies a Presbyterian work ethic that would have impressed even Andrew Carnegie. In the short time Murray has been a professional, the demands of the sport have risen exponentially. To win any Grand Slam, let alone Wimbledon, takes a level of fitness and technique far beyond that of the giants of the 20th century. Calling on exceptional reserves of fortitude, dedication and discipline, Murray has risen to that challenge.

And he has done so in unusually difficult times. First with Scotland’s Independence Referendum, and now Brexit, the media spotlight has burned brightly upon him. Added to the ordinary stress last weekend of winning one of the most gladiatorial contests in the world of sport, was the expectation to cheer a nation downcast and divided by politics. He is a tennis star, but also a national treasure whose role includes unifying, pacifying and uplifting the entire country. With all this to live up to, Murray could probably tell fracking engineers a thing or two about pressure.

We might all learn from his example: the businesswoman whose fear of bankruptcy prevents her taking a risk; the artist held back by his terror of criticism; any of us too scared to dice with disaster. But above all his hard-won fearlessness should inspire the young. Murray can say he is not afraid of failure because he has so evidently thrown everything he has at success. If clutching the most coveted trophy in tennis is what failure leads to, we could do with a lot more of it.