The Answer for Murray? Blowing in the Wind

"How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?"

By Chris Oddo

Andy Murray overcame the pressures and finally won his first major title

(September 12, 2012) -- "How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?"

Those lines, penned with someone other than 2012 U.S. Open champion Andy Murray in mind, seem entirely appropriate in the aftermath of the Scotsman’s maiden Grand Slam title this week.

Now that Murray has slayed the dragon, wrenched the 20,000-pound gorilla off his back, and breathed that giant, ethereal sigh of relief, we can all smile and say: “weren’t we a little too hard on this guy?”

Ever since rising to prominence, Murray became both a symbol of success and failure for British tennis. His successes -- four Grand Slam finals plus an Olympic gold medal, cultivating and employing an entirely unique and imaginative brand of tennis in a world of cookie-cutting baseline-bashing, and exhibiting a cult-worthy, mop-topped on-court demeanor that belied the crisp, larger-than-life stylings of Federer and Nadal and Djokovic -- always ended up getting overshadowed by his failures.

But Murray’s failures -- or what we perceived them to be, myopically -- were actually successes. Yes, Murray fell short on four occasions in Grand slam finals, and on each of those occasions there was the feeling that he had been overwhelmed by the moment, that he had choked. Undeniably, this assessment is true to a certain degree (an aside: who in tennis doesn’t choke?). But to his credit, while we were all busy lamenting his shortcomings, Murray went about the business of strengthening his game. He hired Ivan Lendl, handled the press with dignity where many would have snapped, and never let anything get in the way of what has defined him more than anything else: the fact that he’s an old-school competitor, a die-hard lover and supporter of the sport, and a genuine, down-to-earth person.

He gave little indication that he was tired of being both deified and persecuted by the media, but the heaviness of his role of British tennis savoir can’t have been easy. Murray’s resilience, and eventual breakthrough in spite of it all proves that deep down, the 25-year-old’s blue-blooded lust for tennis and desire to succeed trumped all other modern dilemmas.

That in and of itself, is wildly refreshing.

Thus the refrain: "How many years can some people exist, before they’re allowed to be free?"

Well Murray is free now, and the answer to the plethora of philosophical questions about his future over the last five years or so might have very well been blowing in the wind. On Saturday, as Murray faced Tomas Berdych in near-hurricane winds in the semifinal, that was certainly the case. It was fitting that this was the test placed before Murray on this his ultimate proving ground. It was as if the gods of tennis had been watching this man toil for years in what had become the most Sisyphean struggle in all of tennis. Perhaps they too felt that it was all a bit unfair.

And so they created a maelstrom; a howling, chair-tossing, teeth-chattering wind that was the ultimate nightmare for tennis players, but magically for Murray, less of a nightmare and more of a challenge that he could wrap his brain around constructively.

This was so evident on Saturday, back when Murray’s future was still in doubt. Berdych’s high ball toss and inability to cope with the elements, juxtaposed with Murray’s resourcefulness and full, blooming bag of tennis tricks, was a complete and utter mismatch.

And there, in that howling wind, we got to truly experience the greatness of Andy Murray. We got a sense of just how deep his game is, of how his diversity, his cleverness, his intuition and his love of a challenge could all seamlessly come together to finally push that rock over the top of the mountain.

In the final against Djokovic, it was more of the same for Murray. One could make the argument that Murray had nothing to lose in the final, but the truth of the matter is that another loss in another entirely winnable Grand Slam final might have been too much to bear. It might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, and thus one could also make the argument that the pressure facing Murray in his fifth Grand Slam final was even greater than the pressure in his first four.

And yet, there he was, slicing and dicing in the nasty, howling vortex that Arthur Ashe Stadium had become, with no signs of visible frustration. It was by no means the perfect match for Murray, but he started strong and finished strong and in the end, he was the one racking up a $6500 tab at a trendy NYC restaurant after the final.

There were times where it looked like failure was imminent. There was a hellbent, fist-pumping man on the other side of the net that had other designs. But this time, when crunch time came, Murray had the goods.

They were the goods that he had always had, the goods that the gods had deigned to give him, and when it was time -- his time -- he used them to the fullest.

Now, finally, we can call him a man.

(Photo Credit: Andy Kentla)