Murray reveals new Wimbledon kit
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It’s sometimes easy to forget that Wimbledon is a part of London. The name is so synonymous with the event that some visitors find it strange leaving the District Line tube early at Southfields – others simply find it odd to see the word on a map.
But Wimbledon is just a little village in the leafy south-west corner of this cosmopolitan colossus. Visitors from every corner of the globe visit the city, each with their experience differing by the borough they visit. London can mean anything to anyone – every aspect of life is here, which is why the decision to unveil Andy Murray’s Wimbledon kit this morning in a converted tram shed in Shoreditch, a good 10 miles from the All England Club, made sense.
The exposed iron beams, distressed wooden roof and ceramic tiled walls were all throwbacks to an age when such spaces were not just built but crafted – and yet, with its beaten leather couches and ambient lighting, the venue oozed contemporary cool. There had been no need to strip the place and start again – it just needed to be looked at through modern eyes.
And that, no doubt, is exactly what the marketeers at Fred Perry had in mind for the launch of the world No.3’s collection. Murray emerged, blinking and blinded by the flashbulbs, in a classically influenced polo shirt and cable v-neck sweater, each embroidered with the laurel branding and the letters AM.
One hundred years on since Perry’s birth, the brand that carries the name of the last British man to win Wimbledon has kitted Murray (and his brother Jamie) out with a wardrobe drawn deep from the traditions of the label. The monogramming harks back to the 1960s, when Fred Perry provided bespoke lines for clients and friends such as John F Kennedy and later Billie Jean King.
But the kit does much more than nod towards the founding history of the brand. Murray, once the scruffy, lanky kid in the oversize shirt and baseball cap, appeared on the stage a man, in both dress and increasingly imposing physique.
He may only be 22, but in so many ways the past year has seen him bid farewell to the excuse-making and petulance of his youth and emerge as a member of the tennis elite, and a genuine contender for the Grand Slams. It is something that even the self-effacing Scot will admit without any sense of boast or bravado.
“I expect a lot of myself in the big tournaments,” said Murray, speaking after the kit launch. “Since Wimbledon last year, where my game kind of kicked on, I’ve started to improve. I learned that I was in much better shape but I needed to get much stronger.
“I’ve done that now, and the physical side of things had made me much stronger mentally. I feel like I can win the big points now.”
But confidence is contagious, and the British public need little encouragement to set their expectation levels to stratospheric. Murray, a teenager through the Henmania years, is aware of the impending Andymonium, and determined to not let it get to him.
People in the past have used it [the hype] as an excuse to explain why a British player hasn’t won Wimbledon,” he said. “But I personally don’t feel like it makes any difference once the tournament starts. It’s a little bit more stressful before, but once the tournament starts it’s not different to the other slams.”
He was asked whether or not the revamped image and comparisons with Perry would heap more pressure on him to produce, but Murray considers himself his own man, and believes the difference in eras and evolution of the game comfortably separates him from such pressure. The real problem remains where he is most comfortable – on the court, challenging two of the best players of all time.
“What Fred Perry and those guys did back then was great,” said Murray of Perry’s career Grand Slam, “but very different. Three of the four slams were played on grass, whereas now the surfaces do play very differently, so it’s great what Roger did, and it’s great what Rafa’s going to do.”
“For me [comparisons with Perry] doesn’t make any difference to my performance, whatever the press or media say. I think it’s a nice thing to do for his 100th birthday. I’m not looking for people to compare me to Fred Perry.”
Murray doesn’t look for comparisons with anybody. He is now a man, and his own man at that.
