Having already become the first British man since Fred Perry, in 1936, to win a Grand Slam final, with victory in the 2012 US Open, Andy Murray made even bigger headlines the following year by becoming the first British man since Perry to win the men’s singles at the Wimbledon Championships. Murray, 26, did so in some style, too, winning 6-4, 7-5, 6-4 in three hours and 10 minutes.
Fresh from a straight-sets victory over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the final of Aegon Championships at The Queen’s Club, in West Kensington, second-seeded Murray was largely untroubled in the early rounds of the Wimbledon Championships. However, having progressed to the quarter-final stages without dropping a set, he had to recover from two sets down against the unseeded Fernando Verdasco and, again, from a set down against twenty-fourth seed Jerzy Janowicz to set up a clash with number one seed Novak Djokovic in the final.
Played in blazing sunshine and temperatures approaching 50ºC, the final was a high-octane, albeit uncharacteristically erratic, affair, strewn win unforced errors, particularly on the part of Djokovic. Murray took a two-set lead, courtesy of a love service game, and broke serve to lead 2-0 in the third set, before Djokovic reeled off four games in a row to lead 4-2. Murray led again, and served for the match, at 5-4, but squandered three Championship points before finally converting a fourth. Having finally laid the ghost of Fred Perry to rest, Murray said afterwards, ‘It was an unbelievably tough match, so many long games.’