Andy Murray puts happiness above trophies after hard knock of defeat

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/feb/02/andy-murray-happiness-australian-open-final

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There was a time when defeat cut a hole in Andy Murray’s heart, leaving a scar that would take months to heal and pitch those close to him into a miasma of shared grief. Those times are gone.

If Murray can fill the emotional void that must have consumed him after losing to Novak Djokovic in the final of the Australian Open for the third time, he will give himself a decent chance of rebuilding his career to the point he reached when he beat the Serb even more emphatically to win Wimbledon in 2013.

Murray is due to play in Rotterdam next week before moving to the US for the hardcourt swing where he has had varied success. Getting back on the game’s treadmill will either invigorate him or ask him more difficult questions. Either way, he is used to it now.

The emotional Scot has come to realise that losing a tennis match – even his fourth final in the season’s opening grand slam tournament – is not quite as big a deal as surviving back surgery, which he did in November 2013, or seeing a friend die of cancer and another beat it.

It is easy to forget rich and famous athletes have lives away from their public battlefields that are more important to them than headlines, titles and money. “Success,” he said in defeat, “is being happy.”

Nor does losing for the 16th time in 24 matches against Djokovic matter more to Murray than getting ready to marry Kim Sears, who has stood beside him the past few days with first a burst of invective towards Tomas Berdych in Murray’s semi-final on Thursday night that went viral on social media, and then by turning up for the final in a T-shirt that shouted defiance at those critics for whom manners are more important than passion.

When Murray looks to the heavens after a match, fingers raised, he is paying public homage to the memory of Elena Baltacha, who died last year, and Ross Hutchins, who did not. There was no such opportunity to celebrate his deep feelings for them in victory on Sunday night but Murray was back in the mix, comfortable again to join the world No1 alongside Federer and Rafael Nadal, both losers before the semi-finals, as a member of the now creaking Big Four.

As for Sears, whom he will marry in April or October, depending on which rumour is more substantial, she has become, first by accident and then by T-shirt design, the perfect rock for this sometimes temperamental athlete. She is growing in stature by the expletive. Murray was surprised, pleasantly, when she turned up on court wearing words that shouted their mutual disdain of thin-lipped critics: Parental Advisory, Explicit Content.

Murray revealed he did not know she was going to wear the T-shirt on the night of the final but did think it was “a funny shirt”.

Picking up a loser’s cheque for £800,000 and banking 1,200 ranking points to leapfrog the 2014 champion, Stan Wawrinka, will help ease his pain. He is big business – although he is not as obsessed by money as some of those critics who dwell on his commercial clout.

He was tetchy in the small hours after the final, which is no bad thing: losing should hurt and, in all fairness, he had endured a tough time on and off the court over the closing days of the tournament.

So did Djokovic. Although he won 12 of the concluding 13 games to win another brutal final 7-6, 6-7, 6-3, 6-0 in three hours and 39 minutes, it was a win tainted by allegations of gamesmanship, strongly denied.

The Serb was adamant his quick recovery from apparent cramping was not more theatrical than necessary, although visual evidence of his minor breakdowns in the first, second and third sets was at odds with that protestation. If it was not lactic acid rushing through his system to cause a muscle freeze at crucial moments, it must surely have been more than the mere “tiredness” of which he complained.

Whatever it was, Murray was not happy. “I made it clear I was distracted in the third set, that was all,” he said. “I lost in a good way. I gave everything, my best effort in this event. You guys obviously don’t see that; it’s only me and my team and the people I train with who see that.

“But I did everything I could to win. I have to be proud of myself for that and I don’t need things to motivate me. I’m an extremely motivated person and I always try to learn and work hard to get better.

“So, although losing this match was hard, and I wish I could have done better, I thought I played the best I have in long time. I get asked all the time, like when I lost to Roger at the end of last year – will you use this as motivation? I just want to try to get better, to keep improving and I’ll work hard to do that.

“I deserve a rest. I’ve only spent a couple of days at home in the last couple of months and I worked tirelessly in Miami in December. When I got here I spent a lot of time in the gym and in Perth at the Hopman Cup to make sure my body is in the best shape it could be.

“I’m just really happy my body isn’t hindering me. I feel much stronger than I did this time last year. My back is better than it was for most of last year, so I’m happy about that.”