My last post that I wrote on this blog was about a young sportsman coming of age and this will be a similar post after the recent good form of Andy Murray.
It is obvious that the young man from Dunblane has come on leaps and bounds in the last couple of months dating back to the French Open.
He reached the third round there playing some of the best tennis he has ever produced on clay and then followed this up with strong performances during the grass court season where he reached the quarter finals at Queens before retiring injured and then recorded his best grand slam performance after setting Wimbledon alight with an epic five setter against Frenchman Richard Gasquet in the fourth round. This match will also be remembered by many, myself included, for possibly one of the greatest shots I've ever seen when Murray played a truly fantastic passing shot down the line to take the third set and start what turned out to be a fantastic comeback. He was then of course comprehensively beaten by Rafale Nadal but there is no shame in that as Nadal is quite clearly head and shoulders above every other player in the world and it appears to be only a matter of time before usurps Roger Federer as world number one.
Murray then took a couple of weeks off before heading to Toronto where he finally seemed to become the player that many have said he has the potential to be. This was truly evident when he came up against Novak Djokovic, the Australian Open Champion, and a player he had previously failed to beat in four attempts. Murray though played some of the best tennis of his career and overcame his nemesis comfortably 6-3 7-6.
He then lost again to Nadal in the semi finals but the match was extremely close, and had Murray not been struggling with a knee injury he might have advanced to the first masters series title of his career.
It wasn't to be but the future looks ever brighter for Andy Murray. In the next couple of months he is competing for Great Britain in the Olympics and will also be competing in the season ending Grand Slam in America, where he won as a junior and I think is his best hope of winning a Grand Slam.
He is a young man who is truly in charge of his own destiny. He isn't afraid to make tough decisions for the sake of his career and it is this single mindedness which sets him apart from many other young players, and in particular British players.
If he keeps progressing the way he has it can surely only be a matter of time before he becomes the first Britain to win a Grand Slam since Fred Perry won Wimbledon in the 1930's.