The Crying Game
There was rain and drizzle in Melbourne - the perfect weather for what British tennis fans hoped would be a drought-busting day. But alas! Andy Murray could not end 74 years of doom and grand slam gloom by chasing the clouds away.
It was a great shame. A crying shame at that for Andy Murray, as his emotion at the end of the final demonstrated. I've always thought it a tough ask to expect the loser to speak at the end of the Australian Open final. But on a night that had such a strong feel of deja vu, the fourth time in the modern era that a Brit has reached a grand slam final and left the loser, we saw something startlingly new: a side of Andy Murray that will surely endear him to the fans back home. A modern-day Gazza moment.
Shy and a little aloof, Murray has not always met the celebrity requirements of the age, which explains why he is respected and admired but has not always been fully embraced by all British tennis fans. But I suspect that changed in Melbourne.
Even before the final, his image had gone through something of a make-over. There was a new shirt sponsor, a sharper haircut and a new manager, the man who brought you the Spice Girls. There were new insights into his personality. He spent hours before the final, for example, watching the hit ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ comedy Gavin and Stacey. There were twitters chronicling the banalities of life on the road for a 20-something tennis prodigy. But, most important of all, there was on display a new physical and mental maturity. Murray is still a very young man, just 22. And as Roger Federer was generous enough to point out at the end of the final, he will surely be a future champion.
Federer was extraordinary. Immense. In the first cut of my television report on the final, I said he had just strengthened the case for being crowned the Bradman of tennis. Then London called and said that the Bradmanesque reference would be lost of many viewers. But I still reckon it stands. Not only has Federer extended his all-time grand slam record, with a particularly sweet 16, but shown once more that there's a sizeable gap between the best and the rest. As the Australians reading this blog will tell you, the peerless Margaret Court did the same on the women's side.
By chance, I happened to be standing next to Federer under the stands of the Rod Laver Arena just before he went on court. He was ludicrously healthy-looking, ludicrously calm and ludicrously clean-shaven.
There were curious questions to ponder as Murray advanced towards the final. Where did he fit within the traditional England-Australia rivalry? Should he be the target of a bit of friendly Pom-bashing? Or should he be embraced as a quasi-Australian - a man famed for boasting that he would support anyone but England in the 2006 World Cup?
And at least one Australian writer has taken great delight in observing that were we talking about an Englishman in the final we would probably be discussing the merits of Alex Bogdanovich - England's number one, but the world's 171st. And even then, the Aussie papers would gleefully note that he was born in Belgrade rather than Bournemouth.
But who genuinely cares? Rather like your average sausage on your average Aussie barbie, the rivalry between Australia and the Old Country is always overdone. It is strong. It is great fun. But it's by no means defining. Nowhere near.
The truth is that Australia, like Britain, loves sporting champions from wherever they come, which explains the Australian affection towards Ian Botham and Andrew Flintoff. Why, David Beckham packed out the Olympic Stadium in Sydney a couple of years back.
Murray may lack that kind of starpower, but he was the star of this tournament, and won a legion of new friends and admirers. And wouldn't it have been especially poignant to end the drought in Melbourne, where the great Fred Perry died in 1995, almost 15 years to the day.
At the end of both the semi-final and the final, a lone bagpiper rather spookily appeared at the entrance to Melbourne Park. When I left last night, he was playing a sorrowful lament. But in future years, I'm convinced he'll be playing a happier tune.
I'm 
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