The two-time Wimbledon champion is absent from this year’s Championships, the first since his retirement last summer
WIMBLEDON — Henman Hill, Murray Mound, and now what?
“Draper’s Drop” one tabloid suggested as a new name for the famous Wimbledon viewing slope after British No 1 Jack Draper, but it is not nearly as catchy.
The struggle to rename an iconic site is a proxy for tennis’s main difficulty in Britain: how do you replace Andy Murray?
This is the first Wimbledon for a generation where Murray is not playing.
Last summer, there was intense speculation over his participation: whether it would be in singles, men’s or mixed doubles, how long it would go on, how fit he was.
It culminated in an emotional, tear-jerking on-court presentation with Sue Barker that was viewed by millions on the BBC.
“We miss him. I miss him on tour,” British No 3 Cam Norrie said.
Officially retired, Murray does not need an invitation to come to SW19, where he is of course a member, but he is not expected to attend this year, even in a social capacity.
The i Paper understands the BBC made overtures to get him on as part of their TV coverage, but the Scot said no.
He does not like criticising current players, although sources have not ruled out a spell as a pundit in the future.
So it will fall to the rest of the Brits to make sure the country sits up and takes notice of Wimbledon.
“When Andy retired, they said I was the next in line for that,” Draper said.
“I’ll keep trying to do my best to keep try and improving, to show my best tennis out there, to hopefully present myself as the player and the person I want to be.
“Andy has done an unbelievable job of that and has been incredibly successful and has become adored by the nation. It’s obviously big shoes to fill. I’m aware of that.
“At the same time I’m confident in myself that hopefully I can inspire people like Andy has done, myself.”
Murray had a good start at Wimbledon, which helped.
Ranked outside the top 300 as a wildcard, he reached the third round on debut and beat the No 14 seed Radek Stepanek along the way.
He was two sets up on David Nalbandian before his body let him down, but even that endeared him to the British crowd.
There were low moments of course; his joke that he would “support whoever England were playing against” at the 2006 World Cup failed to land and is still anecdotally held against him.
But for the most part, Murray filled the void left by the retiring Tim Henman more than adequately, entertaining millions on a Saturday tea-time and eventually reaching immortality twice at Wimbledon.
But it is about more than just winning tennis matches.
It is about winning over people to whom the tennis is secondary, like Murray did, over time, with his dry sense of humour and more significantly his raw emotion, sobbing on court after defeat to Roger Federer in his first Wimbledon final.
“Jack’s going to be very different to Andy with that stuff,” says Dan Evans, Davis Cup, Olympics and golf team-mate to both.
“Emma’s obviously […] done a lot of other stuff off the court where Andy didn’t do a lot. And that’s fine, Tim Henman didn’t do a lot of advertising off the court. I feel like Jack is really going to push forward to put it out there.”
