2012 Summer OlympicsTennisVideo

The Most Andy Murray Sequence Ever

Andy Murray’s going to be playing for a championship on Centre Court at the All England Club against Roger Federer. Been a while since you heard anything like that, right? Yes, just a month after his emotional defeat in the Wimbledon final to the greatest player of all time, Andy Murray will face off against Roger Federer for Olympic gold. Murray advanced to the final in impressive fashion, beating Novak Djokovic – who, remember, has played better tennis overall than anyone in the world since the beginning of 2011 – 7-5, 7-5. And he did it in classic Andy Murray fashion, too.

The key to a vintage Andy Murray performance: self-flagellation. Murray is famous for being ferociously hard on himself when he makes the slightest mistake, and generally possessing a remarkable ability to look miserable almost all the time (even if he’s really not). And while he seemed to do well at not letting himself dissolve in a pool of his own negative energy during (most of) Wimbledon, he’s still unmistakably the same Andy Murray, for better or worse. Don’t believe us? Late in the first set, Murray buried a forehand into the net. His reaction:

Even for Andy Murray, that is an absolutely wretched bit of body language. We’ve seen him contort his face in alarming ways, and we might have seen him smack himself in the head (it wasn’t the only time in today’s match he did it – and remember, he won), but we’d never seen him combine four self-smacks with a face like that. Combine it with the yelling at himself that he also did, and you’ve got a Murray Self-Flagellation Triple Crown. Big moment.

But there’s more to a vintage Murray performance than self-loathing angst: there’s also top-flight tennis. Soon after that mini-tantrum you just saw above, Murray had a set point on Djokovic. Here’s what he did with it:

He’s smacking himself in the head one minute, hitting brilliant set-ending winners against one of the most gifted players ever the next. Maybe Murray doesn’t get enough credit for mental fortitude. He looks like he’s easily susceptible to letting his emotions get the best of him because… well, he is. (Check that first video again.) But if he can bounce back that quickly to play championship-level tennis, does it even matter?

Sure, it’s not always pleasant to watch, but Murray’s made four Grand Slam finals (with his recent one against Federer being easily his best showing on the big stage), and will now have at least a silver at the Olympics. For all his easily-mockable temper issues, the guy is really, really good, and might just be getting even better. And so this was the scene on Centre Court today at the end of the match:

OK, yeah, so Murray even looks pained when he’s celebrating. You know who else does? Rafa Nadal. It can work for a person, is all we’re saying.