Hitting Back (17 page)

Celebrating my first
win, shaking hands
with George Bastl on
court two. So happy!

First appearance on the big screen at Henman Hill

(
Inset
) Looking through
the bars outside the
All England Club
during a photo shoot
with Tim Henman in
2006. Hair's starting
to get big!

San Jose –
first ATP title.
Loving it!

With British player
James Auckland
in Las Vegas

I can remember running round with Andy when we were little kids
at the tennis courts in Dunblane. My mum was coaching somebody
and we were at the back of the courts, chasing after tennis balls and
probably getting hit by some as well. When we got bored with that
we would go over to the park, kick a football and chase the
ducks while one of the other mums looked after us. We were quite
close in age so we did pretty much everything together and got on
pretty well. We argued as all brothers do, but mostly it was all in
good fun.

At home we'd make up games all the time and they were always
competitive. Sponge ball football in the hallway was a favourite or
indoor short tennis in the living room with all our trophies lined up
as the net. We'd put the bigger ones at the end for the net post and
the smaller ones in the middle. It was a bit silly but we loved it. I can't
remember breaking any ornaments, but when we were five or six we
once played basketball using a closed window as the hoop, so the first
time we threw a shot we smashed the window. That was very, very
stupid. My mum wasn't too pleased but my dad just sighed and said:
'We'd better get another window.'

As boys, we were similar in many ways but different too. Andy was
quite fiery and stubborn; I was more easy-going. He didn't like being
told what to do and he didn't always listen to what you had to say.
He doesn't even now. He liked to figure things out for himself – he
still does – and that can be a bit frustrating at times.

When we were kids, he'd often refuse to play what I wanted and
we'd end up arguing. I guess we had disagreements over silly things.
But we didn't fight. We maybe threw a punch or a kick, but we
wouldn't be scrapping it out over ten rounds.

I am the elder brother, so I would tend to win at games the
majority of the time. I usually beat him at tennis until we were about
twelve and thirteen – then Andy improved a lot and started to beat
me. He was so competitive, he wanted to win at everything, even
Snap. I admit, I used to let him win sometimes. I liked winning, but not
to the point he did. I wouldn't get mad if I was losing at Monopoly or
Cluedo or whatever, but he did. So, anything for a quiet life, I thought.
It was better to see him with a smile on his face than throwing a
tantrum – it was just less hassle.

We shared a room until we were about ten. I was much tidier. I
didn't like mess. Even if I was a bit untidy, it was controlled mess.
My clothes would be folded up on the floor as opposed to Andy's
dirty clothes in a heap. We had bunk beds and loads of posters all
round. Mine were Manchester United, his were Liverpool. Then we
became fans of WWF wrestling. I was a Hulk Hogan fan, and Andy
loved The Rock. Of course, we tried the moves ourselves. We
made a couple of belts out of cardboard and put duvets on the
floor for a stage. But I only ever let him win the women's belts, if I
was feeling generous.

We were always competing at something. Neither of us was happy
just sitting around in the house playing computer games all day,
although we had Game Boys and Nintendo. We'd much rather be
out playing football, tennis, squash or golf. I played quite a bit of golf
up to the age of seventeen and got down to a handicap of three
before tennis took over. Maybe it runs in the family: my uncle Keith,
Mum's brother, is a professional in America.

Andy and I never did anything really naughty growing up. We never
got into trouble at school and never experimented with smoking or
underage drinking but we were once in a bit of trouble for chucking
eggs with some friends at Halloween. We would wind each other up
a lot, but the only time I really hit him was when we were on a
minibus coming back from the Solihull tournament. He had beaten
me in the final and was going on and on about it. He had his hand on
the armrest and I punched him right on the nail of a finger. There was
a bit of blood and my mum had to stop the bus to sort us out. I didn't
think it was that bad but the nail went black and blue and eventually
fell off. He even had to get a tetanus shot the next day. He still talks
about it and shows off the scar. I do regret it, but everyone has their
breaking point.

I don't remember Mum telling me off really badly afterwards. I am
sure she was annoyed but she was also understanding. She was – and
is – a great mum to have. Dad is great as well. Even though they
separated when we were teenagers, I've always thought we had a
really good childhood and were brought up pretty well.

Looking back, it's strange that I wanted so much to go away from
home when I was twelve. I loved being at home but I had this fierce
ambition to board away from home because I wanted to be a tennis
player and I thought that's what I'd have to do. I ended up at the
LTA Tennis Academy in Cambridge. It was a rushed decision
because I'd been told that my original choice, Bisham Abbey, was to
be closed down, just four weeks before I was due to go. Everything
had been arranged for Bisham Abbey and I was going to be looked
after by Pat Cash's old coach, Ian Barclay. I'd known since the
February that I would start in August and my bags had been packed
for months! I was really excited and when things changed suddenly,
I still wanted to go somewhere. The new regional centre at
Cambridge was the option given to me by the LTA and it was a
mistake. I was twelve years old and I didn't like it at all. My tennis
suffered and I was often miserable on the phone home to my mum.
My friends were at the same training academy, but I was a little
younger than them so I was sent to a different boarding school. It
would have been logical to come home sooner as I was so unhappy,
but I wanted to try and stick it out – maybe I thought it was the
brave thing to do. I stayed eight months in the end and then enough
was enough.

Going away for that time meant that Andy and I didn't really see
much of each other and my experience definitely put him off leaving
home for his tennis. Three years later when he was fifteen, he went
away to Spain, and though I was still competing we were nearly
always at different tournaments. Even though we're very close in age
– only fifteen months between us – it is really only in the past two
years on the tour that we've been able to hang out together.

Things haven't changed that much since we were kids. We're
pretty similar and we get on really well but we still argue about all
sorts of things. I think that's normal. Andy still doesn't like being told
what to do. Sometimes I get a bit annoyed with that. But he's his own
person. I don't interfere with his decisions because he won't
necessarily like what I say. It's not worth arguing. I think I'm more laid
back than he is. Even if I'm doing something I don't want to, I still put
on a smiley face and do it, whereas I think Andy is more likely to look
completely fed-up.

I am very proud of what he is achieving in the game. He deserves
it because he has put in the work. He's overcome so many ups and
downs. I am sure in the next five to ten years he'll become a great
player. I don't think there's any doubt about that. I guess he's inspired
me to try to reach the level he is playing at. Obviously I'm not up to
his standard, but in the doubles, with my partner Max Mirnyi, I am still
playing on the ATP tour week-in, week-out. I'm loving it. I'm living the
life I always wanted to lead.

In 2007 I stopped talking to the BBC. There were a number of
things that contributed to the silence, but the main reason was
an interview that I did with one of their journalists at a smaller
tournament in Metz. He said he was interviewing me about
one thing, but it seemed to me more like a covert operation to
get me to talk about something else entirely. Something that
then dropped me into a whole heap of trouble.

Some people, I understand, would just let this sort of thing
go. I am one of those who can't do that. If I think something is
wrong or unfair, I will say so. It makes my life harder in many
ways, but I have never changed. It is just the way I am.

The situation arose out of nowhere. I was playing in one of
the smaller ATP tournaments in Metz in France, my first visit
back to Europe following the wrist injury that wrecked half my
year. I was playing in the singles and also in the doubles with
my brother, trying to get back to match sharpness after such a
long lay-off. I wasn't anticipating any press interviews. It
wasn't the kind of tournament that the world's media would
find of great interest.

On this particular day, I was in a bad mood. My brother and
I had just lost in the doubles and I didn't play that well either. I
was just about to jump into my car and go back to the hotel
when the press woman in charge of the event ran up to say:
'Someone from the BBC is here, just wondering whether you
could do five minutes with him.' I said I didn't really want to.

'Well, they've requested it. I'm sorry. It's just a general chat
about the tournament.'

I had no reason to be suspicious because normally Patricio,
my agent, would red flag a situation that could be awkward.
But this time he had no idea it was happening. The ATP did not
send him their usual email about interview requests at
tournaments probably because it was one of the smaller ones
on the tour. Then a guy came up to introduce himself. I'd never
met him and I had no clue who he was. It turned out to be
Brian Alexander, a BBC journalist who had been trying to talk
to me for ages – so my agent Patricio told me later – because
he was doing some sort of investigative programme into the
state of British tennis. Patricio had said no, explaining that I
wanted to concentrate one hundred per cent on recovery from
the wrist injury. This guy didn't seem too happy about it. He
sent an email back just saying, 'would 15 minutes with me
seriously delay his recovery process?!'

So the man said to me: 'I don't believe we've met. Nice to
finally meet you. I just want to talk to you about some of the
smaller tournaments on the ATP tour and what life is like away
from the glitz and glamour of the grand slams. Is that OK?' I
said it was fine. No alarm bells were going off. It sounded
perfectly OK to me. I swallowed my tiredness and disappointment
about losing the match and tried to be as decent as I
could.

The interview began without any problem. He asked me
about the atmosphere in Metz, what it was like to play in
somewhere like an old school hall. He asked me about the
Davis Cup and whether it was important to me. I explained
how much I enjoyed it, although the scheduling could put a
huge strain on the body. Then he said: 'Can I also ask you this.
There's obviously been some negative stuff about tennis
recently. About betting and suspicious betting on odd matches.
Are you shocked about that?'

I answered truthfully, that I really wasn't surprised. I said it
because I'd been reading in newspapers that four different
players had said they had been offered money to throw tennis
matches. Arvind Parmar, the British player, was one; the
Belgian Gilles Elseneer was another. Gilles said that he had
been offered £70,000 to lose a match at Wimbledon two years
before. Dick Norman had also said he had been offered a bribe
to lose a Challenger match. A few guys had come out and
talked about it.

That is why I said I wasn't surprised. I also said that it wasn't
acceptable and that it was difficult to prove whether someone
was trying or not in a tennis match because they can do their
best until the last couple of games of each set and then make
mistakes or serve double faults. It is virtually impossible to
prove. I said it was disappointing for the other players, but
'everyone knows it goes on'.

I wasn't properly prepared to have a serious conversation
about something as sensitive as gambling in sport. In trying to
be helpful, I had blurted something out without really thinking
about it. I didn't mean to imply I knew matches were being
fixed, only that approaches were being made to certain players.

For the record:

He then asked me two follow-up questions on the same
subject. I should have realised what was going on – that this
was the whole purpose of the interview – but it was late, I
wasn't thinking straight and maybe I was a bit naïve. We were
talking about the fact that you couldn't stop people betting on
tennis and therefore it was difficult to stop potential problems
with players being offered money to lose.

He said: 'You don't sound surprised then. You actually feel
this is locker-room talk. You and fellow players know this kind
of thing is going on?'

I said: 'Yeah, I speak to a lot of guys, especially experienced
ones who have been around a long time. They obviously know
that it happens. A lot of guys have been approached about it.
I've seen articles saying guys even at Wimbledon are doing it,
so . . . everyone knows it goes on . . .'

Those were the words that came back to haunt me: 'Everyone
knows it goes on.' A few days later, Patricio called me and said:
'Have you been talking about betting? Because there is a guy
doing a show on Radio Five called
The Usual Suspects
and it's
about betting in tennis.' I said: 'Yeah, but I only answered a
couple of questions.' I didn't think I had said anything that
other people weren't saying. Tim Henman had been on
television saying that he thought betting on matches was a
growing trend because of the internet, and tennis would have to
be vigilant against it. John McEnroe had even talked about it as
a 'cheap way to make a buck'. So there were lots of opinions
out there and I didn't think I had said anything different.

Then the programme was aired and it was something like:
'We're talking about corruption in tennis. This is what Andy
Murray thinks about it.' Then it was my words: 'Yeah . . .
everyone knows it goes on.' They made it sound as though I
was saying tennis was a corrupt sport.

The BBC website made the situation even worse. On there
I was quoted as saying: 'Everyone knows corruption goes on.'

Many things seemed to happen very quickly after that. It
caused headlines around the world, the ATP told me I
shouldn't be saying such things; and some of my fellow
professionals like Rafa Nadal and the Russian Nikolay
Davydenko, who was being investigated following unusual
betting patterns on a match he lost in Poland, had a public go
at me. I just didn't think it was fair for a number of reasons.

The ATP ought to have found out what the BBC were
looking for when I was asked to do that interview. They are the
ones that asked me to do it, as one of our media obligations. If
they had said: 'No, sorry, he can't do the interview' or even if
during the interview, the representative from the ATP had cut
in and said: 'Sorry, you said you were here to talk about the
tournament, not ask questions about betting' they might have
solved the problem before it started. It was obviously a touchy
subject and the ATP woman was standing right next to me at
the time.

The context of this is important. It is a fact that tennis
players are not allowed to bet on matches, their own or
anyone else's. Neither are people in their entourages. There
was an Italian player called Alessio di Mauro who was
suspended for nine months and fined £29,000 for being found
guilty of betting on matches – not his own – but I thought the
punishment was a little bit harsh given that the reports said he
only bet a few lire. The real fear for tennis was a different
one: that players expected to win matches would be bribed to
deliberately lose them, so that criminal gamblers could back
the longer-odds opposition knowing they were likely to win.

So it was a real, live, dangerous issue. There was an investigation
going on into that Davydenko match against the lower
ranked Vassallo Arguello in Poland when Davydenko pulled
out in the third set with an injury and I think the ATP staff
might reasonably have intervened when they sensed what the
interviewer was after. Of course, you can blame me too.
Maybe I should have taken the responsibility myself – I do try
as I get older to do that – but I was taken by surprise, and I had
believed this guy when he told me he just wanted to ask about
the atmosphere at minor tournaments. At no point did he tell
me he was gathering material for an investigative radio
programme on match-fixing. If I had known that I wouldn't
have done the interview. I thought it was pretty poor.

It turned out that he had spoken to five or six other players
at Metz, all about betting. It was clearly his mission, but he
didn't mention that to me. In the programme that went out,
they just ran part of my answers and none of his questions so
the context was completely lost. Obviously we protested and
the head of BBC radio sport wrote a letter to me in part-apology.

The issue of betting is still there. I haven't said any more
about it than most people. Since that interview, Michael
Llodra, Arnaud Clement and Dmitry Tursunov have all come
out and said that people have approached them to throw
matches. It happens. We know that the approaches happen.
But I don't know anything else. They have been holding
investigations, but no one's been found guilty of trying to fix
their own matches.

It is not fair to say that tennis is corrupt and make it sound
as if those words are coming from me. I never once said that
tennis was corrupt. It is
my
sport. I couldn't give 110 per cent
every match, or even play it at all, if that were the case. I have
to believe in its essential honesty. I have never been offered
money myself and when I spoke I was going by what other
people had been saying.

I had a great deal of negative press afterwards. Nadal,
obviously, had read all about it. He said I had gone 'overboard'.
Davydenko clearly didn't like getting asked about the
subject in press conferences. 'If Murray says that he knows,
that means he gambles himself. This is outrageous. How does
he know what I was trying to do? I was so upset with the whole
thing I started crying.'

Both of them had received a message that I believe had been
badly distorted by the BBC's reporting. You don't want that
sort of issue with players. You spend thirty weeks of the year
with them. It's not the most comfortable thing if you're trying
to avoid them.

As far as Davydenko was concerned, it probably sounded as
if I was directing some sort of blame at him or saying he was
guilty. It was bad enough for him to be caught up in the whole
betting controversy, but it must have been pretty tough to take
when he was told that one of his fellow players was saying he
was guilty. I guess what he said in regards to me was a reaction
to that.

After I played him in Doha, I apologised to him for what had
happened. I never did have any kind of row with him because
we don't normally speak on the tour. I don't know him that
well. He doesn't speak very good English and my Russian isn't
that great.

As usual, I have learned from the mistake, but even now if
someone came to me and said: 'What do you think about
betting in tennis?' I am not sure what I am supposed to do.
Should I lie and say nothing? Should I say: 'No comment',
which basically makes it sound as though I think something
dodgy is going on. Or should I tell the truth? That is what I did.
I told the truth, which is what I was always taught growing
up. I didn't point the finger at any player. I just told the truth
as I saw it and then watched it get splashed round the world as
a headline.

So that is why I decided I wouldn't speak to the BBC. I felt
an important trust had been broken. It wasn't the only problem
I had with them either. I was on the shortlist for the 2007 BBC
Sports Personality of the Year Award and one of the things
they do on their website is a little 'Did You Know?' section
about all the contenders. Amir Khan's said: 'Did you know
Amir has a cousin who plays for the England cricket team?'
Mine said: 'Did you know that Andy Murray was called 'Lazy
English' when he trained in Spain?' That would be fine if it was
true, but I never, ever heard anyone call me that. I was baffled.
I asked all my friends who were at the Academy with me and
none of them had heard that expression either. It came from
nowhere and no one had bothered to check whether it was
actually true. Perhaps you shouldn't worry about what people
call you, but I had worked so very, very hard in Spain that it
seemed to me unjust.

Then there was Jamie winning the mixed doubles at
Wimbledon. Radio Five had asked me if I would come and
speak to them on the air after the match and I said sure. I went
along and did the interview, but as Jamie lifted the trophy, I
couldn't speak. I was crying. So Jonathan Overend, the Radio
Five tennis correspondent, cut in with the description: 'Jamie
Murray lifts the Wimbledon trophy . . .' etc.

Then this woman says to me on air: 'Andy, just before you
go – you must be jealous of Jamie. I'm an older sister and I love
it when I get one over on my little sister.' I looked at her in
disbelief. My expression must have said: 'What the hell are you
doing?' I didn't say anything. There was just a moment of
silence. I definitely wasn't jealous of Jamie, I was thrilled for
him. If I had been jealous I doubt I would have been in tears.
If you listen back to the interview, you can hear in my voice
that I can hardly speak without my voice cracking.