PARENTS go through quiet agonies watching their children play sport. There is a form of torture in standing helplessly on the sidelines as your pride and joy risks life and limb throwing themselves into tackles or otherwise performs in matches which will define the mood at the dinner table for a fortnight or more.
You could magnify that by about a million to try to get some kind of handle on what Judy Murray, her parents Roy and Shirley Erskine, Andy and Jamie’s dad Willie and the rest of the extended clan were going through here at the Emirates Arena. There they were, watching their flesh and blood hold the hopes and dreams of not one, but two, nations in the palm of their hands, in what was assumed will be a pivotal doubles rubber in Great Britain’s Davis Cup semi-final against Australia. They took their place discreetly among the watching crowd, unlike LTA chief executive Michael Downey, who opted for the full-on Union Jack blazer.
While Andy has learned the knack of surfing the affections of a crowd, you need only look at the Scotland football team to learn the suffocating pressures that performing in front of an expectant home audience can also bring. The emotion can drain you as well as inspire you and with all apologies to the 8000 wholehearted paying customers who crammed into this structure in the East End of Glasgow, it was these two lads from Dunblane who had to find a way to get it done.
On the other side of the net were two men who would make them fight for everything. That quite simply is how Lleyton Hewitt, the man who Andy Murray’s dog Rusty is named after, has earned his crust for the last couple of decades. He had won 58 previous Davis Cup rubbers, but amazingly this was only his third career meeting with the world No 3.
Standing next to him, Sam Groth is a 27-year-old who looks like he should be stationed on the door of a Surfers’ Paradise nightclub rather than earning a living on the ATP Tour. When he wasn’t muttering “sorry mate” on the frequent occasions when his ball toss went awry, he was unapologetically smashing big serves down. No-one on planet tennis has recorded a faster one.
A Scottish crowd love to roar on an underdog but the dynamic alters when they feel they will witness a routine victory. That was the triumphalist approach in some quarters when the rather unsurprising news filtered through this morning that Leon Smith had acceded to the wishes of the third best player in the world and would allow him to play in the doubles. That meant the luckless Dom Inglot, a US Open semi-finalist, was restricted to a cheerleading role, while Andy and Jamie, who met competitively for the first time) in Canada last month (Jamie and his Aussie partner John Peers won) teaming up in Davis Cup action on home soil for the first time.
The younger Murray sibling had appeared fresh as a daisy when taking just 107 minutes to dissect Thanasi Kokkinakis in the singles on Friday, but the rigours of a full-on, 10-year career in the sport should not be discounted, and in the opening stages here Andy’s gait was reminiscent of a far older man.
There was the odd miscommunication too as they attempted to reacquaint themselves with this family doubles act, and it was a nervous crowd who witnessed Jamie’s serve being surrendered in the fifth game of the match. Break point was decided in Australia’s favour by a cunning Hewitt lob, and celebrated with a chest bump between the two Antipodeans which nearly knocked the smaller man clean off his feet. The set was theirs, even if Groth had to see off two break back points before it was in the books.
These were crisis points for these two home heroes alright, but while lesser beings may have doubted themselves, defeat for these two was simply not an option. At times, one would help the other out or vice versa but these two can provide a classic, complementary one-two punch. While Andy’s return game provides the platform, Jamie’s instincts at the net – which have seen him reach back-to-back Grand Slam doubles finals – can then finish the job.
Having regathered momentum with a series of quickfire exchanges at the net, the Groth serve was broken to establish a 4-2 advantage in the second set, Andy dancing across the floor in mindless jubilation like a crazed 80s rock guitarist. The world No 3 served it out, with Jamie finishing things at the net with aplomb.
This match, though, was only getting started. The Scottish/British pair had to reel off five straight games from 4-1 down to take the third set, while the fourth was even more harum scarum. Three Aussie set points came and went, then Hewitt and Andy Murray couldn’t hold their deliveries and we were into a fourth-set breaker, an agonising clash of Murray rackets signalling that the Aussies had won it to extend matters into a decider.
The Murrays marched into a final set lead then found the dogged wee Rusty biting back at them. By the end, Andy was having more success than the umpire in telling the crowd to calm down, but when one last Groth volley flew long the honour, and advantage in this tie, was theirs, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-7, 6-4.
Who would be a parent? Days like this must make it all worth it.
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