To paul B. Although you may never read this, i want to try to explain my thoughts. English people wanting Scotland to win at football, feels like a sympathy vote, we really don't want it. We know we are a slightly above average footballing nation, although we can on occasion punch above our weight, we will usually get hammered when we come up against a good footballing nation. We're okay with that, we can party afterwards knowing we did our best, but were beaten by a better team. England on the other hand go into competitions with no modesty or any hint of a humble approach, in scotland we get the same media coverage, the cold bare hard cruel verdict that England can, should & will win whatever competition they are participating in, remember 1966 etc. All the talk of winning a competition before a ball has been kicked, to our shame we did it in 1978, that mistake will never be made again, we are humble and respectful of any opponent we play, especially the Faroe Islands, population 52,000, who have humbled us on many occasions.

England doesn't seem to show this respect, purely from what is portrayed in the media, not neccesarily by english supporters, the frenzy and hype that England expects, and winning is probable because England is made up of a superb bunch of players, well many much lesser footballing nations seem to beat England with ease, things might improve under Capello, but the real problem lies with the ability of decent English players to make it to the top teams and play at the top level. Scotland has gone through the process of buying foreign players en masse, only to see the detrimental effect it had on our national team, going as low as 88th in the world rankings, where we then had a draw of 3 out of the top 10 european teams in our group, Italy, France, Ukraine. The UEFA proposal to restrict players who are not homegrown talent might be the saving grace of the national side, allowing more English players to get into the team.

murray the"stingray" will lose on sunday..

Sorry! Getting ahead of myself. Still a bit to go before a possible Murray/Del Potro clash. By way of consolation, the Del Potro/Gilles Simon meeting should provide a very interesting contrast of styles. Apologies

Very good win for Andy Murray against an opponent who plays a very aggressive serve/volley game. The fact that he is left/handed makes Llodra an added threat. While Safin thanked whoever was behind making the Wimbledon courts slower, I guess LLodra would be cursing the same persons ancestors. The Murray/del Potro matchup will be one of the hottest 3rd/round tickets along with the possible Federer&Stepanek clash. CHEERS

all you need for today in tennis is first of all phisical strength and endurance i dont think Murray has enough stamina to go all the way on such a big tournament like grand slam i think Melzer will be the last one who will be beaten by andy on us open he wont go further

Murray is playing some good tennis lately this year... i found it very pleasable to watch is games, especially when he is being supported by the fans, like in wimbledon... but i think that making him a contender to US righ now its a hard calling on him, with the sharks trying to produce good tennis to beat themselves it will be hard for andy to knock em out. but i wish him luck for the upcoming match.
cheers

Comment 6 , obviously the W in your surname stands for what you are!

To w.z.e

A very well thought out and reasoned post - at last some sane, rational thought. I am English and can quite easily separate the England/Scotland football issue and British tennis, as you so well illustrate. I guess my only issue with what you say is that it's not ok for the English to support Scotland in the footy. Given that we are all in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, I think it is quite reasonabel to support your home nation first and, if they get knocked out, support any remaining members of the UK. It is interesting that you say that feeling is not mirrored in Scotland.

Anyway, one one issue we agree - come on Andy!!
Paul B.

I am not an Andy Murray fan by any means but it is good to see some modesty from him in his comments. "I'm not good enough to be able to do that". At least he is showing some signs of maturing. More of the same please Andy.

actually i'm not a novak fan, i'm a fed fan so there goes your whole argument

this one goes to football4life.....dont allow your red hot bloods cell get the better of your brain. if you may, just try to read it again before you pen down your initial reaction. then you would realize that nobody was character assasinated in my comment. what makes forums fun such as this is when we see our favorite players pitted against the bests in the sport. i obviously wanted murray get past this hurdle and keep himself out of elims until a clash with the serb....i wanted this match to happen. this is just as exciting as nadal vs federer showdown. i can only make presumptions that you are not just a tennis fun but a djokovics for that matter....now tell me whose emotions run high here and who has the idiotic twit between the two of us....you just ate your words brother and run around projecting yourself on others.....common man... be game and sport. dont be a sensitive fool for whoever is you are rooting for...if you cant stay away from this forum.

To those who hate Andy Murray.

He once expressed sentiments about not wanting England to win at football, and that he'd be supporting whoever they were playing against. This is something many Scots feel as England are our biggest rivals in FOOTBALL, and we don't want our rivals winning things and gloating (how many times do we here 1966 mentioned everytime a major tournament comes up?). It does irritate us, so we feel a healthy dose of sporting bitterness, resentment and pettiness. Who do Scots want to win at football, anyone but England they gloat too much! Many English people want Scotland to win and do well at football, we find that attitude patronising and belittling, please just support your own team.

This may not be a rational or reasonable attitude, but it is representative of many Scottish people who bear England no ill feeling once the final whistle has blown.

Andy Murray is not English, expecting him to support our biggest footballing rival is like asking England supporters to get right behind Germany or Argentina, when they play. It's not likely to happen nor is there any common sense reason why you should.

That this grates on people, well fair enough, that's your opinion and you're just as entitled to it as Andy is to his opinion.

HOWEVER, by some strange quirk of union and shared history, olympic sports, tennis, F1 etc are all participated in as Great Britain. Therefore Andy Murray is a British Tennis player, rather than a Scottish one. I'm quite okay with that, just as I'm okay with Lewis Hamilton in F1 (scottish name, we're having him, lol) or Chris Hoy etc... They compete under a union jack, i thought they might be fascists at first, but no, it turns out it is the flag of our United Kingdom, so that's okay.

He is the best Britain has on the tennis court just now, if your British and interested in tennis, i think he'll do you proud. If you're English and resent his footballing allegiance (as petty as you may think it is) then it's going to be a hard bitter few years for you, because no one seems like knocking him off the British number one perch for a while.

C'mon Andy...

Yes Jackel you are right. It's interesting that living standards have risen in the Far East in the last 2 or 3 decades due to international trade and we are starting to get some good Chinese players on the circuit, especially in the WTA. Shanghai Masters and prep for OG have helped there, of course.

murrays a @#$%

To comment 7, the reason why there are no africans is because Tennis is an elitist sport and therefore the elitist's have made the sport very expensive and therefore making it hard for African tennis players to come through or to actually step onto courts as everything cost alot. Or maybe lack of facilities in african states or lack of coverage or interest. Maybe the Atp should think about playing some tournaments in african states to promote tennis to them and maybe think about developments plan to build courts in specially selected regions where they think people would come to play.

anyone who does not support Andy Murray simply because he is Scottish, is a pathetic piece of @#$%.. but then you probably already know that, by virtue of the fact that anyone whom has ever met you, thinks of you as ignorant scum, and your life is utterly meaningless. Here's an idea, do us all a favour and just kill yourself.. no-one will even notice, especially the scum that spawned you.

Comment #11 yeah i'm sure novak is scared most of playing Andy not nadal or fed, idiotic twit. dont let your emotions get in the way of reality.

Good news, and nice to see generally sensible comments for a change!

Well said Bobbie, I agree.

GREAT BRITAIN is so proud of you andy,you should be sportsman of the year for what you are doing for british tennis and forget about all those other dummies that critize you.
i know that you will be the number one in the world some day.

All winners wobble at times. Henman ruined enough fingernails during his time. While his mental fortitude is often questioned, I think a certain P. Sampras had a lot to do with Tim failing to win a grand slam. Murray has arrived on the scene at the same time as Nadal, and hopefully this won't have the same effect. It would be great to see a BRIT in a grand slam final again.