Andy Murray-British Tennis Hope

He got his first hit of a tennis ball when he was 2 years old.

He has an older brother, Jamie Murray, who is also a professional player but specializes in doubles.

He was coached at some point in his career by Brad Gilbert, who also coached Andre Agassi to several grand slam titles.

When it comes to nationality he likes to be as "Scottish, but also British".

When he was 15 years old he moved away from home to Spain to train at a tennis academy.

Introducing Andy Murray, who promises to save British tennis once and for all. It's been a long wait but it might have been worth while after all. Murray has been blessed with a wealth of talent but more importantly he has the work ethic and self belief to make the most of his talent. Every year that Murray has been on the professional tour he has been getting better, and one can't help but feel it is just a matter of time before he wins his first grand slam tournament.

Between 2004 and 2005 he climbed 400 places in the rankings and he turned professional in 2005. At the end of 2005 he finished at #64 in the rankings. In 2006 he won his first ATP tournament at San Jose beating Leyton Hewitt in the final. He was also one of only two players who beat Roger Federer that year. The other was Rafael Nadal. He would end 2006 at #17 in the rankings. In 2007 he entered the top 10 for the first time, winning two more titles, again at San Jose and also at St Petersburg.

But he was plagued by various injuries which made him miss a few weeks including Wimbledon. He seemed to have learned his lesson because he started a tough fitness regime that saw him win five more titles and making his first grand slam final at the US Open in 2008. The five titles included two Masters Series events in Cincinatti and Madrid. Murray's predecessor and big British tennis hope Tim Henman could only manage one Masters Series title in his whole career and no grand slam finals.

Greg Rusedski who was also British actually did Henman one better by making a grand slam final but he wasn't born British and therefor the British did not see him as much as a son as they did Henman. So if the past is anything to go by Murray must be on the verge of winning his fiirst grand slam title. In fact many people thought he was the favorite to win the first grand slam of 2009 at the Australian Open, but he fell in a close match to Vernando Verdasco from Spain who was playing some incredible tennis.

Murray also picked up a bug when he was in Australia that might have had an influence on the outcome of that match since he was spending time in bed and taking medication during the tournament. In fact Murray is still having problems with the virus having withdrawn from the tournament in Dubai just last week. Already in 2009 Murray have picked up where he left off with two tounament wins and victories over both Federer and Nadal. He has shown he can beat the best, he just needs to do it now on a consistent level at the grand slams.

Murray favors the faster courts so his best chance at a slam should come at the US Open one feels. The ultimate scenario would be if he won Wimbledon of course in the Britain's back yard. The last British player who won the Wimbledon title was a woman, Virginia Wade, in 1977. Murray faces a lot of pressure form the British press and the likes when he plays on home soil so I won't bet on him winning his first slam there. I feel he will first win at the US Open and after that he will be more confident to win at Wimbledon.

That would truly me a monumental occasion in British sports and it would be worth seeing it happen for the pure historical significance of it.

A lot of people have criticized Murray for being boring and without personality on court. And while this may be true anyone who can appreciate tennis will know the value of Andy Murray. He is a unique brand of tennis player in that he is tactically very smart and he outfoxes opponents. He is not all power and muscle like so many players these days. Too often these days players only have one game plan when they go on court.

And when their game plan does not work on a given day against a particular opponent they are either to stubborn to try something different or they havn't developed the ability to come up with another game plan. Murray is a master in this regard. He doesn't only have a game plan A or a game plan B, but also a C, D and E. On most occasions he will find a way to beat his opponent, even if he has to change tactics several times.

This is great to see in a time when you have both mindless base line grinders and powerful ball bashers. Neither one of these types put much thought into their tennis. Andy Murray can play both these styles and then some. Granted he has the God given talent to be able to do it but he uses his brain, which is more then you can say for many other players. This makes Murray very exciting in my book.

He may not have the most charasmatic personality but he does have a lot of value as a tennis player. You never quite know what to expect from him, both as an opponent and a spectator and that makes for exciing viewing. Seeing how he out thinks opponents and take them out of their comfort zones is fascinating. He can change up the pace with slices form the backhand and he can suddenly create pace seemingly form nowhere.

This kind of unpredictability is what often leaves opponents dumbfounded. Moreover Murray has it all, big serve, solid ground strokes, great returns, he can volley, he can do it all. Murray is naturally a defensive player but he can turn defense into attack in the blink of an eye. He is the one player who has given Nadal and Federer problems and this is the one big reason we might just soon see a British grand slam champion.

This shows you just how much promise this young talent holds. Surely he has at least a few grand slams in him. He didn't break through at theAustralian Open but he had a virus which seem to be ok now. The doctors couldn't diagnose it so hopefully for him it doesn't rear it's head again. Once again Murray keeps ruling the tour outside the grand slam events.

He made a final and he won a title, which is better thenNadal's American hard court season of a win and a quarter final. He also beat Roger Federer for the sixth time on his way to the Indian Wells final and now holds a 6-2 career record over the tennis legend. He will want to keep this record going into the slams if he wants to have a chance at winning one.

He was beaten convincinglyin the US Open final last year by Federer so he would want to improve on that. Murray has a good chance to make up ranking points in the upcoming clay court season over Novak Djokovic and Federer. Last year he only started really hitting his stride in the latter part of the year and didn't have a very impressive clay court season.

He did however play a lot on clay when he was younger and he is currently training with AlexCorretja to get ready for the clay. So you would really expect him to do much better this year and make his move in the rankings. He would at least want to overtakeDjokovic, but Federer might prove to be out of reach for now. Either way it should be interesting to see how he fares.

There was much expectation on Murray going into the clay court season of 2009. He was obviously a different player from a year ago and he had the opportunity to make up some more ranking points on world nr. 3 Novak Djokovic. For the clay season Murray hired former tour player and clay court specialist Alex Corretja to help him with his clay court game. It looked to be paying off as Murray mde the semi-finals of the Masters Series event in Monte Carlo, testing Nadal in the process.

Was he now in the top 4 clay court players in the world? The answer is no. In the upcoming clay events he lost to Juan Monaco, Juan-Martin Del Potro and Fernando Gonzalez respectively. He lost to Monaco in the third round of Rome, to Del Potro in the quarter finals in Madrid and to Gonzalez in the quarter finals of the French Open. As expected Murray has improved his results from 2008, but clay is still clearly his worst surface. He obviously have a lot of work to do to get into the top 4 in the world on clay.

He seemed to have done enough though as he has now passed Djokovic in the rankings. Djokovic had a very good clay court season until the French Open where he was upset in the third round. Murray was at least consistent in his results, although he did nothing spectacular. It seems Murray has now overtaken the number 3 spot for good, and he will be pumped up for the grass court season. Can he start troubling Federer and Nadal on the grass of Wimbledon? It will be interesting to see that's for sure...