Love watching Andy Murray… hate watching Andy Murray… love watching Andy Murray… hate watching Andy Murray… so the emotions swing one way then the other to accompany the efforts of a man in whom so much, too much, of Scotland’s sporting self-respect is invested.
Reaching into their rabble-rousing playlist the Red Hot Chilli Pipers had aptly and emotively opted for ‘Just a small town kid’ to close their warm-up act while, once the official tunes had been played, what has become the real Davis Cup anthem invited audience participation ‘The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond’ an ever suitable introduction to these matches, at once an over-wrought yet somehow uplifting lament, reflecting the sado-masochistic torture to which Murray subjects his followers.
Only in the sense of his treatment of the impostors that are triumph and despair has there ever been anything of the archetypal lawn tennis club member about the boy from Dunblane and then only because he has at times not so much met as greeted both just the same. Murray’s raw passion has brought a new dimension to the sport, in this part of the world at least and, long unchallenged as Britain’s number one, he never plays in front of a more adoring audience than in the city of his birth.
For their part, if one of the more curious aspects of golf was once summed up by the joke that its popularity is enhanced by being the only place middle class Americans can dress as pimps, tennis matches featuring Murray seem to offer their Scottish counterparts the opportunity to unleash their inner football nut, wrapping themselves in the colours and joining in the with the chants of the Stirling Uni ‘barmy army’.
The closest thing to crowd trouble was, meanwhile, confined to the bloke remonstrating with the rest of his party for failing to get out of their seats in response to Murray winners. The Emirates toilets remain affixed while there was no evidence of long-limbed potential effigies having been liberated from the Parkhead branch of Anne Summers this weekend.
From the outset this had the feel of another Murray classic.
His opponent, Juan Martin del Potro’s decision to receive serve on winning the toss suggested he may not have been quite as sure of himself as the loping gaucho swagger that carried him onto court had suggested. Murray, contrastingly, could hardly have looked more sure of himself as an emphatic forehand winner was followed by a delicately judged drop shot/lob combo to move 30-0 up. ‘Oh-way, oh-way, oh-way, oh-way, Andy, A-Andy.’
Initiative then surrendered and somehow it was break point del Potro. Hate watching Andy Murray.
Another drop shot lob combination then a Murray break of serve. ‘We love you Andy, we do, we love you Andy, we do.’
As he would time and again, however, del Potro responded to induce a repeat of the issue that cost Murray so dear against Kei Nishikori in New York last week, another failure to consolidate a service break instantly reversing momentum. Another break and the first set was Argentina’s. Hate watching Andy Murray.
Trouble in danger of becoming a crisis at 0-30 down in the opening game of the second set, four straight points and crisis averted. ‘We believe that we will win, we believe that we will win.’
So this sweet, sweet torment continued and the longer it went on the more involved the audience became.
A break of serve to win the third set, then a dominant performance in the third set tie-break. ‘Here we go, here we go, here we go.’
Once or twice the excitement proved too much, both players raising concerns about distracting calls from the crowd as del Potro battled back, while by the fifth set Murray was demanding ever greater energy from his supporters just as they were from him.
Match point down. Ace Murray. ‘Let’s go Andy, let’s go.’
The magnificent ‘Delpo’ had already broken, however and after five hours and seven minutes, the agony was completed for a Glasgow crowd for the first time with another thunderous ace.
That, though only provided one more opportunity to offer an example of sporting emotion at its finest as they and their hero showed the big Argentinian the respect he fully deserved.
Hate watching Andy Murray… Love watching Andy Murray.
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