When the Olympic draw came up, Andy Murray was definitely among the favorites giving the high number of top player who chose not to compete in Rio.
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Murray was already the first man to make back-to-back finals and with victory he eclipsed Steffi Graf, who won the title in 1988 then lost in the final in 1992.
The 29-year-old beat Argentina’s Juan Martin Del Potro in an epic four-set clash which saw him become the first tennis player to win back-to-back singles golds at the Olympics. Puig had done her best to memorize the island’s anthem after her father emailed her the lyrics, but as that song played during a medal ceremony for the first time, she couldn’t get out the words.
Murray said: “There weren’t many problems and the crowd was fairly split”.
Speaking after the match he said: “At 33 I’m not sure I’ll be at the same level”.
In the run-up to Rio, there was plenty of discussion about the relationship between the Olympics and tennis, which returned to the program in 1988 after a 64-year absence.
Cape Town – Andy Murray admitted that it’s “obviously not an easy thing to do” after winning his second Olympic gold medal with victory over Juan Martin Del Potro on Sunday.
“He’d done awesome, really, to get back to playing and competing again at this level after all of the issues he had”, Murray said.
The pair were tied as they teed up on the 18th hole, but Team GB’s golfer finished 16 under par and two shots ahead of his rival partner – a dramatic end to the 72 holes of golf played in total.
Since winning the 2009 US Open, Del Potro has suffered a disruptive sequence of wrist injuries. The final then was more straightforward.
Murray had Davis Cup captain and close friend Leon Smith cheering him on in Brazil but his coach Ivan Lendl and mother Judy did not travel.
No matter that among the “Big Four” Federer, Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Murray, the Scot is the only one not to have completed the full collection of grand slam crowns. He won’t play again until the U.S. Open. Since London I’ve had back surgery, I’ve gone through some tough times on the court as well. With the silver, Williams still tied the Olympic mark with her fifth medal: Kathleen McKane also won five (one gold) in the 1920s.
His victory over Nadal in the semifinal was the most stark reminder yet of what the tennis world had been missing the whole of past year.
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Elsewhere, Nick Dempsey was pipped to the post on a gold medal in the men’s RS:X windsurfing final, but the Weymouth-born athlete managed to secure his second successive silver medal – a day after his 36th birthday. The only other country to win three medals was the Czech Republic, with bronzes from Petra Kvitova in singles, Lucie Safarova and Barbora Strycova in women’s doubles, and Lucie Hradecka and Radek Stepanek in mixed doubles.
