I have to admit, though, that I the more I watch these post-match interviews the more I love Andy Murray, and I have started from a position of not loving Andy Murray at all. The reason I love Andy Murray is because of his total visible irritation with the whole thing, and you can see on his face the exact moment when he remembers that his management team told him it was very important to make people like him. So last night, desperate to go home and have a sarnie and a kip, blocked from the exit by the interviewer like that last boring bloke who corners you at a party and will not shut up, he got asked: "So what about the closed roof, did it make the crowd better?" He visibly started, and you could read the reply like it was written on his chin: "The closed roof made me lose the first set and I couldn't give half an elephant's fart about the sodding crowd." But the BBC are *obsessed* with the Wimbledon crowd. They want us to believe that it is the best crowd in the WORLD, when in fact it largely consists of people like me who don't watch a second of tennis for the whole of the rest of the year, but who can be relied upon to turn up wearing union jack tops and tennis balls for earrings [not like me - we have moved on now] and cheer the double faults of the guy who wasn't lucky enough to be born in the UK. Anyway, Murray got halfway through his answer about the humidity and the speed of the ball before he remembered that Simon Fuller had told him to say how great the crowd was, and then he did it with about as much conviction as a politician apologising for an unfortunate war. "Obviously, having 15,000 supporters is great. I like having 15,000 supporters. Thanks, 15,000 supporters." That's what I adore about him: his naked contempt for his fans.
That, and the fact he looks just like Ned Flanders' long lost third son. Am I wrong?
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Missed the whole damn thing cos i was busy and then assumed it had finished! I think reporters who ask stupid questions like that are very lucky if their interviewee doesn't deck them. Particularly stupid at Wimbledon when interviewees generally have a lethal weapon at hand (-:
Ha ha, very good and spot on. I saw that interview too and had similar thoughts...
Great post! Please keep up blogging about the Andy Murray matches (Please G-d there will be 3more of them).
SO much more interesting then any other article I have read on last night's match.
It's a question of audience. I saw a very good, very technical and very thorough interview with Roger Federer on ESPN yesterday, nothing like I've ever seen on UK TV. The BBC thinks its viewers are idiots so never try to push it with anything technical or interesting. Remember that most people in the UK think the tennis season lasts four weeks with a week off after Queens, and that the Eastern European women are 'unknown' becasue smug John Inverdale hasn't heard of them.
No wonder Andy Murray hates the UK press, everywhere else he goes he gets asked sensible questions, at Wimbledon he gets treated as if he's as thick as a footballer.
I think there's a standard interview spiel for each sport, even figure skating. The idea is to come across as a good sport without actually saying anything. The hockey one goes something like: "Well, you know, the guys wanted this one bad and we knew the other team was goin' to make us work for it, but y'know, we've been working hard to improve our defense and tonight it just came together..."
There's a stellar example of the standard baseball spiel in the film Bull Durham, the baseball film for people who don't watch baseball. (And the film where Susan Sarandon met her partner Tim Robbins.)
The BBC were getting very excited yesterday. I almost forgot it was only the fourth round.
You really haven't a clue about Andy do you! Andy for a start has contempt for the media after they twisted what was a jokey retort to Tim Henman who had just seconds before slagged Andy off, a joke between friends that was as per usual twisted by the media and had the wrath of England on his back. He watches carefully what he says in case some other media twat wants to twist something he has said. another thing about Andy is he is pretty shy, he feels awkward getting interviewed....after all he is a tennis player and its the game thats important, not how he looks or what he sys. You are way off base when you say he has contempt for his fans, its his fans that keep him going, as a Scot myself this is what spurs on a Scots sportsman, we rise to noise and cheering. Domn't pretend you like the guy or you wouldn't be writing such crap about him having contempt for his fans..you are no better than that media guy who stirred the shit in the first place that had him being very introverted in his interviews.
Sorry, Elaine, I did express myself badly: I should have said he has contempt for Wimbledon fans, not his fans. Maybe even that's wrong; but he certainly seems to have contempt for accepted interview technique, which I applaud almost as much as I do his beautiful tennis.
Heres an interview with Sue Lloyd who he does trust and doesn't mind answering her questions. I agree with you about his contempt for the media. I still think you are out of order about his Wimbledon fans. The Scots are a different culture to the English and maybe don't gush quite the same when talking about things. I mean what did you expect him to do, bow down to them in gratitude, he thanked them for their support, wasn't that enough. I think with his tennis its a two way thing, they are getting their money's worth in his games.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/8126893.stm
Wimbledon is another planet. A genteel one where is is The Law to wear beige linen. I was there yesterday and Centre Court was still pulsing with the after pains of the Murray match - everyone sitting around me was still talking about it.
Murray is team GB's only hope and that alone makes him interesting to tennis fans but in the wider world of celebrity he's a special needs boy who needs more training about how to handle the media. A few more smiles would equal a few more noughts on his sponsorship deals, so he'll learn.
Anna May x
@annamay: I know the idiots at the Olympic committee call themselves 'Team GB', but please remember that it's the United Kingdom, not GB. GB is an island, not a country.
I'm with you on the Ned Flanders link: and I know you're strong enough to take it, but any regular reader here would get your humour and analysis of Wimbledon, Murray and the media. I get the sense that some commentators arrived on a google search and weren't quite prepared for your tone (which I thought was fine).
Hear hear, Lisa.
Sorry - I think the invasion of Those Who Did Not Get the Tone may have been my fault. I'm a longtime lurker/reader, as well as a tennis fan, and I posted a link to this post on a tennis forum as it gave me a chuckle. Should have guessed not everybody would chuckle along with me. Sigh.
Don't worry L. Am always delighted to be posted elsewhere (and to welcome a lurker) and I can handle a bit of dissent, as can, I'm sure, Mr Murray.
Whether it's contempt, tiredness, genuine surliness or just a lack of interest in playing the media game, I don't care. I love him. He's much more interesting than pretty much every other tennis player out there. I'd support him even if he weren't British, or even if he actually did hate the English which clearly isn't the case.
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