Paper Monitor
11:07 UK time, Tuesday, 1 July 2008
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press...
...which, in a neat twist of events, devotes much acreage today to highlighting the service and other virtues of one Andrew Murray.
Daily Telegraph sports writer Jim White is one of many to note that Murray's riveting comeback on Wimbledon Centre Court was a "coming of age", but the transformation is not all one-sided.
Murray's gruffness and perceived anti-Englishness (or, , he is "obstreperously Scottish") has made it hard for Fleet Street to take him to its bosom, in the manner of that other great whites (sic) hope, Tim Henman.
But hey, this boy's clearly a winner and, the example of Zola Budd aside, who is going to look the gift horse of a potential British champion in the eye?
The only slight damper on proceedings is the lack of pun potential in the great Scotsman's name.
The Mirror is top of the pile, with "Muracle", which puts the Sun's alliterative "Murry Miracle" in the shade.
Metro goes with "Braveheart" - which feels just a little too easy, and the Guardian gives us "Murray muscles in" against a picture of the player showing off his bicep.
Elsewhere, there's an awful lot of "roars" as in "Roar talent" (Mail) and "Murray roars on" - Telegraph.
Special mention for Chris McGrath in the Independent, whose prose on Murray reminded Paper Monitor of the cod music journalist who used to talk about "sonic cathedrals" on Steve Wright's R1 breakfast show all those years ago.
These are some of McGrath's choice phrases, taken completely out of context: "The wait for a Briton who can win this tournament has become very like the wait for Godot, an attempt to give futility a purpose of its own...There is nothing counterfeit about the boy, with his laconic, sometimes peevish mien... To have these touchstones - these vestal assistants to the man in sacerdotal white, playing out a precious midsummer rite - builds faith among those inclined to superficial mistrust or censure... At first he was full of dastardly Gallic feints, flourishing his backhand like a cutlass... But then he showed his empire-building side. And as the dazed crowd wandered into the evening, you could almost hear Vladimir and Estragon among them, wondering what to do if Godot did not come today? 'We'll come back tomorrow.' 'And then the day after tomorrow.'"
Whether or not he goes on beat Nadal in the quarters, Murray's crowning achievement of these championships is to have won over the press pack.
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