Andy Murray — A Look at the British Number 1’s Life and Career

Andrew “Andy” Murray is a Scottish professional tennis player. He prefers playing on clay court but is just as comfortable on grass. He is currently ranked 4th in the world and no.1 in Britain.

He was born on 15 may 1987 in Dunblane, Perthshire, Scotland to Will and Judy. Will worked as retail area manager and Judy was a former national coach. The couple split in 1996 and Andy and his older brother, Jamie started living with his dad. Jamie is also a professional tennis player, playing on the double’s circuit. Murray attended Dunblane Primary school and can faintly recall taking cover in a classroom during the Dunblane massacre in 1996 in which around 17 people were killed.

Andy started playing tennis at the age of five. Leon Smith, his coach in his teen years was spellbound the first time he saw Andy play. Murray believes that the motivation he gained from losing to his older brother helped him improve a lot. He also played association football and was offered to train with the Rangers Football Club. He declined this offer saying he was keen on a tennis career and needed to focus on it. Andy’s very first achievement was when he won the Orange Bowl, a prestigious junior event at the age of 12. In September 2004, he won the junior US open aged 17 by beating Sergiy Stakhovsky. The same year Murray was awarded the BBC Young Sports Personality of the year. He was also selected as a member of Great Britain’s squad for the Davis cup match against Austria, although he never played. He was called again in 2005, but this time for the doubles against Israel. He and his partner, David Sherwood spun out a surprise win and he became the youngest Briton to play Davis Cup. He reached the semi finals of the French open and lost in the third round of Wimbledon in the year 2005. Andy played his first senior tournament with a wild card entry to the ATP International event in Barcelona. In 2006, he defeated world no. 11 Lleyton Hewitt at the SAP open in the finals. Murray finished the year ranking 17^th which was his best till that point. He won his third ATP title at the St Petersburg open in 2007, reached the fourth round of the Australian open and ended the year ranked 11. In 2008 he reached the finals of the US open defeating Rafael Nadal, currently the world no. 2, in the semi -finals. He won the Montreal Masters Series title, his 13^th ATP title and 4^th masters in the year 2009. The same year Andy Murray peaked at no.2 in the world rankings. 2010, he reached the finals of the Australian open finishing runner up losing to Roger Federar.

Andy is a huge fan of the TV show “Entourage” and his favourite musician is 50 cent. Andy’s autobiography, “Hitting Back” was released in 2008, the latest version of which released in 2009, is called “coming of age”. He continues to play and there’s definitely more to come from him.