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If you were looking for a hero during the ATP’s post-US Open fall swing, you had a surprising number of choices: There was Kei Nishikori, backing up his exceptional US Open by qualifying for the ATP World Tour Finals. How about Roger Federer, piecing together a challenge for the year-end No. 1 ranking -- at age 33? Or Milos Raonic, stepping up in a must-win situation to complete the “elite eight” field for the year-enders. Valid choices, all of them. But my hero this fall is Andy Murray. At the conclusion of the US Open, the struggling British player was demoted from membership in the Big Four to a place in the Big 11. But instead of falling back on the sense of entitlement that accrues with winning a major or two, Murray clenched his jaw, lowered his head, and charged forward -- resolved to qualify for the World Tour Finals.  It was a welcome decision. London would be a little less intriguing and a little less fun without the presence of the scowling, self-berating Scot who in 2013 became the first British man to win Wimbledon in 6,769 years. OK, it was just 77 years. But didn’t it seem a lot longer?
This year was difficult for Murray. The afterglow of his epic win at Wimbledon in '13 had to be disorienting -- how could it not be? After he won Wimbledon in July 2013, Murray never made another semifinal until he pulled the plug on his year in mid-September in order to undergo minor back surgery. The procedure kept him sidelined until the start of this year. Murray did not pronounce himself fully fit and match-tough until after he played three grueling hard-court matches in Acapulco in late March. But then he bombed in Indian Wells, losing to No. 11 Milos Raonic. And Murray mustered only cursory resistance in a loss to top-seeded Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinals in Miami. In the wake of that monthlong misadventure, Murray’s ranking fell to No. 8. The drumbeat began: “What’s wrong with Murray?” In the ensuing weeks, Murray showed flashes of brilliance -- and that was the problem. Guys like Ernests Gulbis or Gael Monfils are the ones who show “flashes of brilliance.” A man who had been embraced as a legitimate peer by his fellow members in the Big Four is supposed to show steady, incandescent genius. Things got worse. Grigor Dimitrov hammered Murray out in the quarters at Wimbledon. Murray’s form continued to fluctuate like water in an irrigation ditch. Following a weak US Open, at which he lost a quarterfinal to the top-seeded Djokovic, the Scot was wallowing at No. 11. Murray might have chosen to coast to the finish and write off a disappointing 2014 to a combination of his back troubles and an understandable, lingering loss of motivation following his great Wimbledon moment. He could claim things just sort of got away from him. Instead, Murray did the most difficult thing, which was probably the right thing, and certainly the most humble thing -- in other words, the kind of thing you see less and less among the elite players: Andy Murray went rogue. Murray decided to throw his schedule out the window and make an all-out effort to qualify for the World Tour Finals in London. As befitting his diminished station in tennis, he was doing the Nishikori or Raonic thing, not the Djokovic or Federer thing. Murray was adding tournaments, taking on risk. He became a man on a mission. After the US Open, Murray went 20-3 with three titles -- his only three of 2014. Despite those dazzling numbers, Murray still did not qualify for London until he won his third-round match in the final tournament of the year, the Paris Masters 1000. Wasn’t it just a few years ago that the grouchy stars of tennis had to be dragged kicking and screaming -- and pleading physical cruelty -- to London? This year, Andy Murray played six weeks in a row after his loss at the US Open, in outposts ranging from Shenzhen, China, to Vienna, Austria. Hey, when did this guy turn into David Ferrer? Murray’s autumn has truly been the “hero’s journey” that Hollywood so loves. By definition, that trip has also been a learning experience. Perhaps Murray has learned -- or remembered -- that he still belongs among that Big Four. And when his journey was completed, the sigh of relief that rose in London was so heartfelt that it probably fogged all the windows in Battersea.
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