The Men's Wimbledon Final and the country was awash with anticipation. Anticipation that Andy Murray would lose and we'd all be complaining about how shit he is. Despite the fact that whatever happened he was going to be in the top two tennis players in this tournament and that no one doing the complaining was likely to be within a million placings of him in the tennis rankings. The world is a massive place and Britain is small and Scotland is smaller. Would any other country in the world be disappointed in this player's failure to actually win a grand slam? The UK just seems to be a happier place if its bemoaning itself and bringing people down. There will always be some angle as to how something can have gone tits up. So Murray has been roundly criticised throughout the tournament for being emotionless and miserable, but sure enough when after he'd fought his way this far and fallen at the last hurdle and then let emotion get the better of him and had a little cry, the (self-same?) people were saying how this was why he hadn't won because he'd let his emotions get to him. His crying showed his weakness. Even though all logic would suggest that his reserved demeanour before the end was down to the exact opposite and the fact that he didn't really emote until it was all over. Federer could tell he was going to cry in the future and so could the tennis balls, so they deliberately went to places on the court where Murray couldn't hit them, because they didn't want to be associated with such weakness.
I heard someone on the radio who thought Murray was defeatist quoting someone who had said something like, "If you can even acknowledge that defeat is possible, then you can never win." I would suggest that the opposite is obviously true. If you are unaware that there is such a thing as defeat then you wouldn't even bother trying. And I would love to meet even one professional sportsman (or just person) who can play a sport without a realisation that defeat is a possibility. No one wins every single game, so if a person was somehow capable of not knowing defeat was a possibility and also capable of playing competitively, then surely when they did actually lose, there whole world view would explode and they'd have a mental breakdown. I've seen a few players looking upset at the end, but most of them quickly recover and then shake hands with their opponent. I have never seen anyone collapse in a gibbering mess, their whole understanding of the world blown apart.
One commentator suggested that Murray needed more determination and that he should have come out and played with more belief. As if that alone would be enough. Because he's British? If believing is enough then surely a three year old child should win Wimbledon every year. They can believe all kinds of shit. Murray was playing a man who is probably the greatest tennis player of all time, came close to beating him (or at least held his own for much of the match) and then showed how much the final had meant to him and how for him, getting to the final was not enough. I genuinely can't believe there are people out there cuntish enough to not think he has done a remarkable thing and acted with dignity, wit and humanity in defeat.
Britain is really tiny. We don't have many people or many resources to train sportspeople. The fact we have a tennis player who even got to the final of Wimbledon is astonishing.
I enjoyed commentating on the early part of the game on Twitter, threatening to score the whole thing with my "Who gets the most points system." I lasted a little while but then (luckily) lost count. But even my points system couldn't save Andy. He lost 151-137. That's right he was 14 points worse than the best tennis player in the world. What a loser!
