US tennis star feels some people don’t want Black players to succeed
LONDON (AP) — After the U.S. Open, Andy Murray and his wife spoke to a packed gallery in the British capital. They spoke to cameras, as well as to the thousands of fans who gathered in the cool, rainy night and cheered them on.
He told them he was “proud” of them, he said, and he’d never be afraid to take on the challenge of being a top-ranked singles player at the age of 22. A week later, at the Paris Masters, two weeks after Wimbledon, the same message was delivered. And, sure enough, he beat the second-seeded Spaniard 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 in the final, to join Rafael Nadal in the Wimbledon men’s singles final.
“It’s a bit surreal because it’s been a year and one’s left,” he said after the final, with a laugh, on Sunday.
As a teenager, Murray grew up watching and playing on the tennis courts where Serena Williams played. He had wanted to play with Serena for so long.
“I started off going to her academy, but not the professional one, the one outside her home,” Murray said. “It was quite intimidating to go into the academy of someone like her.”
He wanted to play with Williams, too, in the juniors.
“And you know, of course, she never let me play,” Murray said.
But when he turned professional in his early 20s, it was Murray’s parents who wanted him to take on Williams at the U.S. Open. The Williams sisters helped him make it happen.
“I think they liked the idea, but I think they were a little bit nervous about it at first,” Murray said. “I think she was a little bit annoyed at first with the fact that I was a little bit younger than her, and then
