Game, Set and Match

Congrats to Roger Federer on winning the Wimbledon men’s singles crown on Sunday. That this is his 15th Grand Slam title is a remarkable achievement. I swear the man is a tennis machine. And he’s only 27! Quite astounding.

Of course conspicuously absent from Federer’s epic final against the über-cool Andy Roddick was that other Andy – as in Murray. Just prior to Andy M’s semi-final loss on Friday, the amusingly banal Andy Murray-o-Meter (tracking the burning issue ‘Is Andy Murray a Brit or a Scot?’), had peaked at a ‘yes’ vote of 86%. I checked this morning and see it’s down to 77%. My bet’s on a further slide south over coming days. We Brits are an unforgiving lot, no?

Yet again, after all the acres of press coverage and gargantuan hype, Mr Murray failed to deliver a Grand Slam victory for Team GB. Not his fault – the guy did his best but was beaten on the day by a better player (Roddick). So is Andy Murray the nation’s next planet-conquering sporting brand in the making? I think not. As the always insightful Mark Ritson observed in Marketing recently, ‘the harsh reality is that Murray is a fine tennis player, but a hopeless prospect as the next Beckham, no matter how advanced the brand strategy applied to his future career.’

So best of British – and Scottish! – to you, Andy Murray. But to paraphrase Monty Python in The Life of Brian, I suggest we all remember that you’re not a sports brand messiah, you’re just a very moody and petulant boy who does a fine job swinging a tennis racquet.

Oh, and the day after Michael Jackson’s three-ring circus send off (sorry, Memorial Service), in Los Angeles, this exclusive report just in: He’s still dead, folks. I just love our ‘sleb-obsessed culture, don’t you?