ANDY MURRAY & THE OLYMPICS BY RICHARD EVANS

Written by: Staff on 18th August 2016

ANDY MURRAY & THE OLYMPICS BY RICHARD EVANS

epa05485715 Gold medal winner Andy Murray of Great Britain celebrates after the awarding ceremony of men's singles gold medal match of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games Tennis events at the Olympic Tennis Centre in the Olympic Park in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 14 August 2016. EPA/MICHAEL REYNOLDS |

The Olympics have been good for tennis and tennis good for the Olympics. Any sport needs exposure and any sporting event, even one as big as the Olympics, needs big names creating big stories.

From a distance, it seems as if tennis was not only one of the best attended sports in Rio de Janeiro but also produced as much passion, joy and tears as any of them.

And for a happy band of tennis players, an exhausting, jam-packed week of drama and triumph will linger forever, having left a mark on their careers that can never be erased.

For Andy Murray, becoming the first player to win a second singles Gold, allowed him to achieve something his dauntingly talented rivals have never done. It may well provide the platform for him to rise to No 1 in the world in the coming months.

For Juan Martin del Potro a Silver Medal was worth its weight in gold. This charming and desperately unlucky man would surely have established himself as one of the best players in the world had it not been for the consistent wrist problems which wrecked his career over an agonizing three year period during which time he needed four surgeries. But del Potro’s first round victory over Novak Djokovic, followed by a win against Rafa Nadal and the gallant fight against Murray and fatigue in the final has surely put him back on the road to the top. The world’s Top Ten will look better with Delpo and his thundering forehand in it.

It is hard to imagine who benefited most from Monica Puig’s stunning success. Women’s tennis has needed a bright new face all year and the financially strapped island nation of Puerto Rico desperately needed something to lift the spirits and offer some joy.

Gold medalist Monica Puig of Puerto Rico on the podium during the medal ceremony for the women’s Singles competiton of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games Tennis events at the Olympic Tennis Centre in the Olympic Park in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 13 August 2016. EPA/MICHAEL REYNOLDS

Monica’s lovely smile and the tears that went with it as she draped the Puerto Rican flag around her shoulders offered succor to her sport and her nation and one can only hope she will be able to transport the form she displayed in such astonishing fashion in Brazil out onto the WTA tour. She looked a seriously good player while beating three Grand Slam champions in Garbine Muguruza, Petra Kvitova and Angelique Kereber. Was it just confidence that was holding her back?

There should be plenty of that now although much depends on how she handles becoming an overnight celebrity. The rum will flow, if only metaphorically, when she gets back to Puerto Rico and she will need to be aware of what happened to Ana Ivanovic when she won the French Open; Dinara Safina when she became No 1 in the world and Petra Kvitova when she won her first Wimbledon. And more recently to Garbine Muguruza after this year’s Roland Garros triumph. For a long time afterwards, all these players failed to build on sudden success. In every sense and with the help of her team, Monica Puig will need to keep her eye on the ball.

For Jack Sock – well, the upbeat America must have been listening to that Fred Astaire song (although, somehow, I doubt it!) which says, “Pick yourself up, dust yourself own and start all over again.” Sock did just that after crashing out of the singles in the first round to Japan’s Taro Daniel 6-4, 6-4 while suffering from a dose of walking pneumonia. From that point, he had only two options – quit or get cracking. He chose the latter, going on to become the only tennis player to win two medals at the Games – Gold in partnership with the ebullient Bethanie Mattek-Sands and bronze with Steve Johnson, the Californian who also had a great Olympics, having led Murray by a break in the third set in the singles quarter-finals.

No matter what they go on to achieve in the game, Sock and Mattek-Sands will both probably regard this achievement as the highlight of their careers. Even the manner of their victory was extraordinary as Venus Williams and Rajeev Ram led 6-3 in the Super tie breaker at the end of a closely fought final before losing it 11-9.

Emotions must have been very different for Venus and Rajeev. For the elder Williams sister, disappointment at missing out on a 5th Gold Medal must have been tempered by the fact she took responsibility for keeping the family medal-winning tradition alive after Serena’s early defeat in singles and their disappointing women’s doubles loss. What a competitor she is! And what a credit to the game.

For Ram, a Silver Olympic Medal after fourteen years on the tour will have come as a most delightful surprise. Prior to Rio, the Indiana native had listed winning two ATP singles titles on grass at Newport RI as his greatest achievement. The former University of Illinois NCAA winner has something else to put on the mantel piece now.

And there was Rafa. The great Spaniard gave every indication of recovering his true form in the early stages of the singles but, like Novak Djokovic, he fell foul of the del Potro forehand when he reached the semi-final. He will have hated to lose that but there was joy and compensation in the men’s doubles where he was able to help his long time pal Marc Lopez to the thrill of a life time by winning Gold. Maybe Rafa has had bigger thrills but this was something special – for him, for his friend and his country.

Rafael Nadal of Spain returns a ball to Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina during the men’s Singles semifinal match of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games Tennis events at the Olympic Tennis Centre in the Olympic Park in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 13 August 2016. EPA/BERND THISSEN

A final word about Murray and about the Olympics itself. For the proud Scot, the week was a total triumph from the moment he bore the Union Jack into the arena on behalf for the entire British team at the opening ceremony to the moment he won match point against del Potro. It was his 18th consecutive victory in a year that is turning into his best ever.

In May it would have inconceivable that 2016 would turn out to be anything but Djokovic’s year. Now that is not so cut and dried. Murray has been in two Grand Slam finals as well as winning Wimbledon. He has beaten Djokovic at the Italian Open and won on grass at the Queen’s Club. Apart from two distracted losses at Indian Wells and Miami when he was coming to terms with the shock of fatherhood, only Nadal in the Monte Carlo semi-final, and Djokovic have beaten him. He is playing the best tennis of his career and is proving to be Britain’s most enduring athlete and impressive sportsman.

Some people may not like Murray’s on court demeanor but that does not do justice to the man. The embrace and words of comfort he offered del Potro after their titanic battle offered a glimpse of the true man – the man who, having realized he could not get himself up to play for Britain against Serbia five days after winning Wimbledon, still took it upon himself to fly to Belgrade to support the team. The man who follows and supports every British tennis player, no matter what their ranking, and who carries the game’s statistics in his head.

When the BBC’s John Inverdale was hyping his achievement of being the first man to win two Olympic Golds in an interview after the final, Murray shot back, “The Williams sisters have four each.”

Already a self-admitted feminist, Murray is not about to forget that there are champions of every stripe and gender. He does not think the world belongs to him, not even with two Gold Medals, but, my goodness, how he fights for his fair slice of it.

The argument about which sports fit into the Olympics and which don’t will continue. Golf did itself no favors in its bid for acceptance when so many leading stars pulled out – the Vika virus being the main reason offered – but there is no doubt that tennis embellished these Games.

Looking down from above, that will please the former International Federation President Philippe Chatrier and his Secretary General David Gray – formerly a great tennis writer for The Guardian – who battled long and hard to get tennis back into the OIympics after a long hiatus.

As David explained to me just before tennis re-appeared at the Los Angeles Games as an exhibition sport, it was not just about prestige and exposure but for hard financial reasons. “The smaller nations struggle to survive financially and most have no extra cash to create development programs,” Gray told me. “The money they will get from being an Olympic sport with the funding that comes with it will offer a life line.”

That seemed a good enough argument for me. Tennis and the Olympics certainly embraced each other in Rio – almost as warmly as Andy Murray and Juan Martin del Potro after one of the most memorable matches of the year.