In the space of a month in 2012, Andy Murray went from tears in the rain to gold in the sunshine, winning hearts and medals on Centre Court.
Inscribed above the doors that lead to Wimbledon's Centre Court is a famous line from Rudyard Kipling's poem, If.It is there to remind the world's best and their challengers that you are defined by more than the scoreboard.The grass courts at SW19 were the scene of a four-week period in 2012 that changed the way a swathe of the British public thought of Murray. Beaten in the Wimbledon final, he regrouped, returned and won Olympic gold on the same court in front of packed stands.
It sometimes seemed there was something inordinate about Murray - his outspokenness was loved to a certain point, his on-court anger amusing when he was winning but derided when he was losing. He was accused of being whingey, of being anti-English, of being boring, when really he was doing what we all do - getting frustrated about the job and attempting to have a laugh along with it.
And so to Wimbledon. The crowds gathered on Henman Hill - in the days when shouts of "come on, Tim!" still raised a chuckle on Centre Court - to watch the human take on the god. Murray puffed out his cheeks as he tried to speak, before he was drowned out by the noise from the crowd. He smiled, shook his head and exhaled before, with a voice on the verge of breaking, saying: "I'm going to try this. And it isn't going to be easy..."
"I find it slightly sad that it took him to cry in his acceptance speech for people to suddenly take a step back and go: 'Wow, he has got a heart. He is a sensitive soul.'""I was unbelievably upset, disappointed and all of those things," says Murray looking back at that defeat by Federer. This time, it was the Olympics. The weather had gone from drizzly to baking hot, the roof wide open to let the sunlight flow down on to Centre Court.
The next day, Murray shared space on the back pages with Usain Bolt and Jessica Ennis-Hill. He had watched the athletics the night before to inspire him. He later wrote in his autobiography that "as an individual sportsman, I have certainly never experienced anything like it".
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