In the inner sanctum of the All England Club the famous Rudyard Kipling quotation is writ large: “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, And treat those two impostors just the same.”
It is one of the last things the players see before they stride on to Centre Court in their bid to become a Wimbledon champion.
The sentiment is admirable, but it is the first line of the poem “If” that is the key to lifting the famous silver gilt trophy: “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs.” And in that department, Andy Murray seems to be the champion elect – he is the calmest man in SW19.
After Manic Monday and the succession of potential banana skins the top seeds face in the first week (put a player, any player, in the main draw of Wimbledon and suddenly he believes he can be a giant killer), the quarter-finals is where the really serious business begins. The eight men left standing are now three matches away from greatness and the expectation and pressure is mounting. The palms become sweaty and the heart beats a little faster. But not with Murray.
In theory, Murray should be the most panic-stricken man in town. Not only is he desperately trying to win this title for himself and his team, he has the whole of the country hanging on his every move.
When you can get the crowd involved in the match it can make a huge difference
He may have won here two years ago but now that he has proved himself to be a champion through and through, the Great British tennis watching public want him to do it again and again. They are a tough crowd, this Centre Court lot. But the world No.3 has learned to embrace the expectation rather than fear it and, as a result, has played some of his best tennis on the courts of SW19.
“When you can get the crowd involved in the match, it makes a huge difference to your performance, I think,” he said. “You saw that with Heather [Watson’s match on Friday]. It goes to show that when everyone goes on about the pressures of playing at Wimbledon, how difficult it is – yes, the pressures are hard, but Heather arguably played the best match of her career yesterday. Yeah, played unbelievable. It shows that the crowd, they really do make a big difference. They help a lot once you get out there.”
And so it was that Murray and 15,000 of his closest friends with Centre Court tickets snuffed out the spirited challenge of Vasek Pospisil 6-4, 7-5, 6-4 to reach the semi-finals. The Canadian ought to have been running on empty after playing 31 sets in singles and doubles on his way to the last eight (Murray had played just 14) but on a showery afternoon and after the second rain delay, he came out recharged and firing on all cylinders. After the third delay and the closing of the roof, he was dogged and determined. But he could not get the better of Murray.
Despite all the delays, the interruptions, the on-again-off-agains, Murray was patient and he was commanding. A few years ago, he might have let his frustrations get the better of him (Pospisil, stubbornly, would not go away) and there may have been some muttering and grumblings, a slumping of the shoulders. He would probably have won in straight sets but, just as probably, he would not have made it look so simple and so serene.
Recently married to his long-time partner, Kim Sears, fit again after his back surgery in 2015 and enjoying his coaching relationship with Amelie Mauresmo, Murray is happy on and off the court. And in Mauresmo, he seems to have found a true mentor and friend.
“We speak a lot but not just about the psychological side,” Mauresmo said. “We also talk about his game. For him, it is easier with a woman, at least right now. He maybe felt more judged before [with Ivan Lendl]. Between guys, there is always a competitive side. I am not in that.
“He is feeling great in the team, he’s feeling the people around him are really committed 100 per cent. He feels he is out there performing at his best, so that helps him to be more serene on the court.”
Keeping calm as he faces Roger Federer in the semi-finals may not be quite so easy – the last time the two men met, Federer thrashed the Scot for the loss of just one game at the ATP World Tour Finals last November. Then again, the last time they met on Centre Court, Murray pulverised Federer to win Olympic gold. It will all come down to who can keep his “head when all about you are losing theirs”. He was a wise old sage, was Rudyard.
