During Wimbledon every year, without fail papers like The Sun and the Daily Mail reserve their bold, size 72 headlines for British players–no matter if those headlines tease an actual story worth reading. Some man or woman from the host nation who is outside the top 100 could lose a non-descript match to someone else outside the top 100 and those papers would treat it like its the biggest sporting development since Argentina beat France in the World Cup final.
Sometimes, however, those headlines are deserved. And that has been the case throughout Week 1 of the 2024 Championships.
A resurgent Emma Raducanu is in the fourth round. Cameron Norrie upset Jack Draper in an all-British showdown on the men’s side. In the women’s draw there was an all-Brit battle between Katie Boulter and Harriet Dart, won by Dart in three sets. And, of course, Andy Murray said goodbye to Wimbledon.
As if that isn’t enough to whet the appetites of British sports fans, the Euro Cup is potentially three wins away from coming home. England is in the quarterfinals against Switzerland at 5:00 pm local on Saturday, so the palpable buzz around the grounds of the All-England Club hasn’t been strictly about tennis.
Even in Murray’s case, the mood around London has mostly been celebratory. The two-time Wimbledon champion lost his doubles match with his brother, Jamie, on Thursday night–but it was followed with a just about perfect retirement ceremony. Complete with legendary BBC presenter Sue Barker MCing the proceedings, the Centre Court sendoff for Murray featured Novak Djokovic, Iga Swiatek, Holger Rune, and Brits Norrie, Draper, Dan Devans, and Tim Henman in attendance.
Many others paid tribute to Murray during and after on social media.
Although Murray still has mixed doubles with Raducanu on the schedule, the former world No. 1 has played his last men’s singles and men’s doubles matches at Wimbledon. He has no more headlines to make. That torch will passed to the likes of Raducanu, Draper, Boulter, and others.
For now, it’s up to Raducanu–and the men’s national soccer team–to keep up Britain’s winning ways.
The 2021 U.S. Open champion was asked following Friday’s third-round win over Maria Sakkari about being the “home hope” now that Murray is out.
“I thrive on such occasions, on big stages,” she said. “It’s something that I play tennis for. I just love the feeling of it, competing, especially here in front of a home crowd. It is really amazing. I think on the pressure side, you can flip it. I have a packed Centre Court who are all rooting for me to win. It really felt like that today. It really felt like that in my last two matches.
“For me, I just feel happy that that many people are behind me. That’s just in a microcosm of what’s going on in the wider world. Not everyone who supported me is in that stadium.”
With the Murray era over, the British public is starving for success elsewhere. Raducanu and all of the other Brits remaining in the singles draws are obvious longshots for the title, but a nation can dream, right?
Maybe there are very real headlines still to be made.
