Andy Murray, Wimbledon and the Olympic Games: four weeks that changed everything

Above the doors leading to Wimbledon’s Center Court is a famous line from Rudyard Kipling’s poem, If.

“If you can meet Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors the same way,” it says.

It’s there to remind the world’s best and their challengers that you are defined by more than just the scoreboard.

No one knows that better than Andy Murray.

The grass courts of SW19 were the scene of a four-week spell in 2012 that changed the way much of the British public thought about Murray. He was defeated in the Wimbledon final, regrouped, returned and won Olympic gold on the same court in front of packed stands.

He swore. He cried. He celebrated. He felt the love.

This is the story of the 28 days that cemented Murray as a national treasure.

Before he was Sir Andrew Murray OBE, world number one, three-time Grand Slam champion, one of the country’s greatest ever athletes… he was, at least for one woman, something very less festive.

In 2006, the Football World Cup took place at the same time as Wimbledon. A 19-year-old Murray, once a promising youth footballer himself, joked in an interview that he would support “whoever England played against”.

It went down like a lead balloon. He was insulted in the comments of a blog he wrote on his website and even his wristbands, decorated with the Scottish saltire, attracted attention.

But the reaction to Murray’s joke was on a much larger scale.

In the aftermath, Murray, playing only his second Wimbledon, walked past a spectator on his way to his match. He overheard her telling a friend, in expletive-laden, anti-Scots language, that she had just spotted him.

“I was a kid and I would get things sent to my locker saying things like, ‘I hope you lose every tennis match for the rest of your life.'”

By the time 2012 arrived, Murray had already broken new ground.

He had reached the final of the US Open in 2008, becoming the first British man to reach a major final since Greg Rusedski in New York eleven years earlier.

Two more Slam finals followed – the Australian Open in 2010 and 2011 – but Britain was still looking for its first male major singles champion since Fred Perry in 1936.

But the ambivalence of some of the general public persisted.

As the Twitter joke went: Murray was British when he won and Scottish when he lost.

At times it seemed like there was something outrageous about Murray; his frankness was liked to a certain extent, his anger on the field amusing when he won, but mocking when he lost.

At the time, Murray was a rising member of the Big Four. Roger Federer was transcendent and described as a ‘god’, especially at Wimbledon. Rafael Nadal had the grit, determination and never-say-die attitude.

Novak Djokovic, another relative newcomer seeking to disrupt their duopoly, defied belief, with limbs bending in all directions, equipped with a stamina and mental strength that few can match.

But Murray? Murray was the most human. A man who sometimes looked as if he actively hated tennis. No one could ever accuse Murray of hiding his emotions. And that didn’t sit well with some.

He was accused of being whiny, of being anti-English, of being boring, when in reality he was doing what we all do: getting frustrated at work and trying to laugh at it.

“One of the things about tennis is that players have to face the media after every match, whether they win or lose. Obviously it’s a lot easier to face the media when you’re winning.

“As an 18-year-old he had a bit of media training, but nothing really prepares you for suddenly standing in front of a room of about 300 people.

“I think his response to everything is to be honest and say what you think. In the coming years you will become much more practiced.”

And so to Wimbledon. The crowd gathered on Henman Hill – at the same time as the shouts of “come on, Tim!” still chuckled on Center Court – to see man portraying god.

It was Murray’s first Wimbledon final, Federer’s eighth. The newspapers called Murray a hero and talked about his date with fate. But as one newspaper asked on its front page, “Can he finish the job?”

John McEnroe pointed out the dilemma for the public in his commentary on BBC TV. “I’m curious to see what will happen if and when, as we expect, the crowd gets behind Murray. He should remind them that I have no Wimbledon wins and Federer has six, but everyone loves Roger.”

The tennis was electric. Murray was excellent. Federer was better. But it was the speech that followed, delivered as Murray walked forward to collect the second trophy, that sticks in people’s minds.

Murray puffed out his cheeks as he tried to speak before being drowned out by the crowd noise. He smiled, shook his head and exhaled, in a voice that was about to break, and said, “I’m going to try this. And it won’t be easy…”

Even now it’s hard to watch. His voice cracked all the time. There is the dry humor – Federer “is not bad for a thirty-year-old” – and the sincere thanks to his team. The recognition that “I’m getting closer” is both honest and cruel to think about. But it is the part in which he thanks the audience, the raw emotion, that really gets through.

He was held up by three separate ovations before leaving for another. By the end, his mother, wife-to-be and many in the stands were in tears.

“I felt like I was playing for the nation,” Murray said later. “And I couldn’t quite do it.”

It was pure emotion. The man accused of being cold, cantankerous and anti-English stood in tears at Wimbledon – the most quintessentially English venue – and told the crowd how much their support means to him.

“Watching him talk about how much that moment meant to him made me want to advocate for him more,” Henman said in a 2020 BBC retrospective.

“I think it’s a little sad that he had to cry in his acceptance speech before people suddenly stepped back and said, ‘Wow, he has a heart. He’s a sensitive soul.'”

The defeat certainly cut deep.

“I was incredibly upset, disappointed and all those things,” Murray reflected on the defeat to Federer.

“I told myself I might never win a Grand Slam. I worked as hard as I could and came close, but it was never enough.

“But the Olympics were coming and I had to make the best of it. I returned to the practice court and in the end I had probably the most important week of my tennis career.”

Exactly four weeks after the Wimbledon final, at the same tournament, Murray again came out behind Federer.

This time it was the Olympic Games. The weather had turned from drizzly to scorching hot, the roof wide open so that sunlight streamed into Center Court.

And with the All England Club’s all-white dress code out the window and Britain in the throes of the Games, the atmosphere was buzzing.