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Andy Murray says that, as he gets older, every Grand Slam final he reaches feels increasingly special, and the more he appreciates both the history and scale of what he is attempting to achieve. We can all feel it too.
So, as one of Britain’s finest sportsmen of all-time approaches his third Wimbledon Gentlemen’s Singles and 11th Grand Slam final, facing the 144mph challenge of Canada’s Milos Raonic, we must not take his appearance in another Centre Court climax for granted.
Murray, now in his 30th year, swears he doesn’t. “It never feels normal. I know how hard these events are to win,” he says. “And Wimbledon? “To get to play in front of a home crowd in a Grand Slam final is very, very rare. This one always feels a little bit more special.”
NoSuchKeyOf his previous 10 finals, Murray has won just two, which seems a meagre reward for a player of rare gifts who just happens to have had the misfortune - or privilege - of parading them at the same time as three of the finest in history: Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer.
Yet this time, for once, they are not in the picture. Nadal is injured, Djokovic was beaten sensationally by Sam Querrey, and Raonic handed Federer a semi-final defeat in five sets that he found hard to bear.
So, for Murray, there’s a very different dynamic to this final. For the first time, he is not facing Djokovic or Federer; instead he finds himself a warm favourite as Raonic, the 25-year-old with the sculpted, immovable hair and the hair-raising serve, tries to break into tennis’s magic circle.
Raonic has the ammunition to crash through, having unleashed the fastest serves (144mph) of the Fortnight and a tournament-best 137 aces (86 more than Murray), while backing up that massive delivery with more aggression in his thunderous ground strokes, added self-belief and more on-court positivity. He puts this down, in part, to his new coaching advisor, one John McEnroe, who was as famously volcanic as Raonic seems mechanically, almost robotically placid.
It has been an unlikely three-week marriage that is hard for the media to resist, especially as it culminates with the delicious sub-plot of ‘Supermac' again confronting his old stone-faced foe Ivan Lendl, Murray’s mentor, in a duel of the super coaches.
As Raonic also has Carlos Moya and Riccardo Piatti on his coaching team, he was asked if he was happy with McEnroe hogging all the headlines. “At the end of the day, I get to win Wimbledon. Who cares?” shrugged Raonic.
He is an unusual one: an art-loving, thoughtful fellow who emigrated to Canada as a three-year-old when his family decided to leave Montenegro and seek new opportunities, partly because of the conflict in the Balkans.
His methodical look on court reflects a career of hard graft but also a willingness to experiment. “I've spared no expense trying to really get the most out of myself,” he says, describing himself as the ‘CEO of Milos Raonic tennis’. Hence the McEnroe appointment. It has already helped carry him to the final at Queen’s, where he troubled Murray, just as he had in the Australian Open semi-finals, only to suffer ‘what might have been’ defeats.
Canada is rightly proud of Raonic, its first male Grand Slam singles finalist, just as the nation delighted in Genie Bouchard’s run to the Ladies’ Singles Final here two years ago. Yet Murray could spoil his big day, having found a way to dismantle Raonic in their past five meetings. The 2013 champion is playing consummately well and, if he can win a third Grand Slam, the history of three-time champions in the Open era informs us that 85 per cent of them then go on to win four or more. It just feels like Murray’s moment.
The best news is that he’s not the only Briton in action on the final day of The Championships, with Heather Watson partnering Finland’s Henri Kontinen in the Mixed Doubles Final against Colombia’s Robert Farah and Germany’s Anna-Lena Groenefeld.
Another Scot, Gordon Reid, fresh from his Gentlemen’s Wheelchair Doubles triumph, features in the inaugural singles final against Sweden’s Stefan Olsson, while Birmingham’s Jordanne Whiley partners Japan’s Yui Kamiji in the Ladies’ Wheelchair Doubles against the star Dutch pairing of singles champion Jiske Griffioen and Aniek van Koot.
Let's hope it will be a grand day for all of you on Aorangi Terrace. Murray was asked if it was Murray Mound or Henman Hill. “Tim can have it. That's fine,” he smiled. It is, however, the only title he’s prepared to give away on Sunday.
