TV VIEW:SO THEN, once the build-up was done and dusted, it was prediction time. "I think Murray's going to win," said Boris Becker, "I'm listening to my stomach and it tells me there could be a changing of the guard today." Tim Henman? "Murray in five," he declared.
“Oooooh,” said Sue Barker, heartened by her guests’ optimism ahead of the Australian Open final. But Murray lost in straight sets.
That was a year ago, what about yesterday?
“On paper, it’s Djokovic,” said Boris, “but my gut tells me Murray.” Tim Henman? “Murray in five,” he declared.
“Oooooh,” said Sue, heartened by her guests’ optimism ahead of the Australian Open final.
But Murray lost in straight sets.
We’re talking a serious dose of the Groundhog Days here.
Now, it’s not often we can summon up sympathy for Andy, the Victor Meldrew of tennis, a man who just has a naturally dejected air about him, even when he might actually be bouncing on cloud nine. A fella who gives the impression he’s as exhilarated by his sporting profession as he’d be by, say, root canal work.
But when Sue suggested yesterday morning not only would Novak Djokovic be “a touch difficult to beat” for Murray, “the ghost of Perry isn’t going to be a pushover either,” we thought: “Ah, here!”
Fred, of course, was the last boy Briton to win a Grand Slam, but that was in the same year that Adolf made it compulsory for boys between 10 and 18 to join the Hitler Youth, close to a whole half century before Andy was born. So, it’s not today nor yesterday.
“And that wait weighs heavy on a nation that is steeped in tennis history,” said Sue. She wasn’t, it should be clarified, reminiscing fondly about the Hitler Youth days, just expressing a desire for Andy to end 75 years of Grand Slam-less British tennis hurt.
That is, it has to be said, a tremendously heavy weight on any young Brit’s shoulders, especially when the shoulders are Scottish. So heavy and consequential a weight, we even wondered if David Cameron’s fate would rest on Andy’s ability to zip a few rasping backhands down Novak’s tramline.
Granted, a British general election isn’t imminent, seeing as it’s barely a wet week since the last one, but we always believed that old yarn about Harold Wilson and Labour winning the 1966 election thanks solely to the English football lads’ World Cup triumph. Until we read that the election took place in March, in or around five months before Bobby Moore thrust Jules Rimet in to the Wembley air. It sort of leads you to the conclusion that everything you know is wrong.
But, if Andy could overcome Novak would his triumph at least take protesting students off the streets for an afternoon, their unconfined joy at seeing him down off a Serb in a tennis match in Melbourne prompting them to forget their fees issue for an afternoon at least?
No pressure, Andy.
Game One. Novak held his serve to love. Game two. Andy levelled, but his struggle to do so made Wellington’s Waterloo triumph over Napoleon seem a bit like Fulham’s first half yesterday. Cakewalkish. “Um,” said John Lloyd in the BBC commentary box. “Err,” said Andrew Cotter beside him.
And it got no better after that – 6-4, 6-2, 6-3 in the end, leaving Sue, Boris and Tim to remind us Novak was the higher seed and it was no real surprise he had prevailed. “A very similar story to last year,” Sue half-smiled, while Boris was left to fret over Andy’s history-making, the first player ever to lose his first three Grand Slam finals in straight sets.
“I hope it doesn’t become a mental problem for him,” said Boris, by now vowing never to listen to his stomach and/or gut again when forecasting the outcome of Grand Slam finals involving players from countries that hadn’t won a slam in 75 years. Tim nodded, in a “been there, wore the T-shirt” kind of way, his memories of nigh on being lynched by the blue-rinsed occupants of Henman Hill after his many Wimbledon exits still, evidently, painfully vivid.
Speaking of exits. Spurs. FA Cup. John Barnes and John Collins, sitting at their pitchside ESPN breakfast bar yesterday, had promised Ray “Stubbsie” Stubbs a closely-fought affair, just 23 minutes before Fulham went 3-0 up. T’was four by half-time.
The breakfast bar had, mysteriously, disappeared at the break, perhaps pilfered by ’Arry Redknapp so he could play it in the centre of his – and we use the word loosely – defence.
Spurs out. ’Arry’s lad Jamie will have been gutted, in a week that saw him also lose Andy and Richard. As LiterallyJamie – that’d be the fake Redknapp – put it on Twitter: “Now Georgie Thompson is campaigning for Ant or Dec to get the job. Furious. I’ve always hated nepotism, in fairness. Just ask Dad.”
