Hitting Back

Book excerpt: 'With Andy, the sky's the limit...' - John McEnroe. At Wimbledon in 2005, a young, brash Andy Murray came out of nowhere and thrashed star pros Georges Bastl and Radek Stepanek. He took a two-set lead against former finalist David Nalbandian before his dramatic winning run came to a end on the Centre Court. But a legend was born, and Britain had a new sporting hero. Henman Hill was renamed Murray Mound, and Henmania became Andymonium. In 2006, Murray went stellar. Aged just 18 he won his first ATP title at San Jose, California, beating former world no. 1s Andy Roddick and Lleyton Hewitt on the way. In the same month, he deposed Tim Henman to become the British No. 1. By the end of a wonderful year in which he was one of only two players to beat Roger Federer, Murray was no. 17 in the world. But Murray is much more than a truly gifted tennis player and potential grand slam champion. He has changed the face of the British game, blowing away the cobwebs of the All England Club, and dividing opinion with his brash, straight-talking style, anti-establishment rhetoric and on-court anger and passion. A whole new generation of kids are becoming tennis fans. Andy has made tennis cool again, like the days of McEnroe, Borg and Nastase. Here, for the first time, Andy Murray talks in his own words about the long, testing, and often difficult path to superstardom. The boy from Dunblane opens up about dealing with the constant limelight and attention from a media and a general public desperate for a genuine British tennis star, and gives the exclusive lowdown on Wimbledon 2008 as he prepares to launch his bid for grass-court glory. Temperamental, gifted, passionate, fiery: Murray is the dazzling new face of British tennis, and a role model to a whole generation. Andy's story will enthral and excite the entire country.