Andy Murray was in tears as he made history in Brazil in the early hours of this morning, becoming the first male to win back-to-back tennis singles golds at the Olympics.
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As seen in the video above, following match point, a exhausted Murray immediately gets overwhelmed – and his eyes well up as he struggles to contain the emotion surrounding the spectacle.
It looked as though Murray would have to go the distance against Del Potro, but he overturned a 5-3 deficit in the fourth set to clinch a 7-5 4-6 6-2 7-5 victory.
This is his first title at any tournament since January 2014, he has been the lowest-ranked man in Olympic gold medalist.
“I think Venus and Serena have about four each”, Murray corrected, referring to the Williams sisters.
Murray said: “I did well in Montreal and Cincy but I just didn’t have enough time off”. It’s been a build-up of emotions over the last 10 days and (I’m) just very happy that I got over the line tonight.
“A lot of the tennis players that I’ve spoken to that have children, they just see their parent as their father and they are more interested in the other players”.
Murray came out on top of del Potro, who had played over three hours in a win Saturday over Rafael Nadal, breaking the Argentine in his first service of the match, a tank-busting game that lasted almost 15 minutes.
Speaking after the match he said: “At 33 I’m not sure I’ll be at the same level”.
“Tonight was one of the hardest matches I have played”, he said in the bowels of the Olympic Tennis Centre, a British flag draped round his shoulders.
“He played great during the whole match, I didn’t play with the right energy during the whole match. Physically it was hard, there were so many ups and downs in the match”. “I found that quite emotional”, he added. I didn’t serve well which made the match tougher than it was already.
It stood up remarkably well but Murray prodded and probed and eventually broke him down, after four hours and two minutes of brutal, sometimes brilliant tennis.
“At the time, it was the first time I had ever won any major event and it was a home Olympics”. Now I got a silver medal, which means [as much as] a gold for me. The final then was more straightforward.
Then came the big final.
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“Silver is like a gold for me – I will remember this for the rest of my life”.
