Andy Murray made history Sunday becoming the first player to win multiple gold medals in singles and also the first to win them back-to-back.
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Del Potro served for the fourth set at 5-4 only for the No2 seed to break the Argentine in consecutive games to close out a hard-fought 7-5 4-6 6-2 7-5 win.
“If you asked me 10 years ago if I would be here in Rio, I would say you’re insane”, said Hingis. Maybe she won’t be. “I am happy to still be here and still playing”.
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. It’s a great honour to get the opportunity to do that. “I had to find a way to get through it”.
“Getting to carry the flag at the opening ceremony was an awesome experience and I was very honoured”.
“I didn’t see any of his matches until yesterday when he played Rafa”.
The three-time major victor now will have a few days rest before he prepares for Cincinnati, where he is still undecided whether he will play.
“To get himself back to playing at this level, fighting for the biggest events and competing against the best players in the world is an awesome credit to him”. “So I need to find a way to keep that going, and the US Open is the next big goal”. But each time he stormed back at just the right time. He deserves a lot of credit for that and he should be very proud.
He was unable to say if this was his finest achievement. “I’ll try and enjoy tonight’s win”.
She added: “It’s much better for me if I’m on my own because I can shout at the TV as much as I want”.
And the Courier says Andy Murray had to come through one of the hardest matches of his career to win Olympic gold. The US Open I played with Novak to win my first slam was very hard but tonight I found really difficult emotionally. So many ups and downs throughout the match.
“London was an awesome couple of weeks but this has been much harder than London”. It was an wonderful couple of weeks for me, that – after losing the Wimbledon final just a few weeks before.
Andy Murray led Britain into these Olympics, then he provided the final winning note on a day of sporting success that will not be forgotten.
“I had to regroup and get my mind on the matches so, to finish it with a match like that, obviously I was fairly emotional at the end”.
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 was absolutely just delighted because it’s what he set out to do and I think anything other than gold would have been a disappointment for him”, she enthused. I wasn’t thinking about that today when I was playing but the fact it hasn’t been done before shows that it’s very hard, so I’m very proud to have been the first one to have done that.
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For a sport supposedly filled with folks who don’t care about the Olympics, there sure was a lot of crying during the tennis competition at the Rio de Janeiro Games. You have so many since things happening since London. Since then, he’s won his trio of majors and his pair of golds – and made a successful comeback from back surgery in September 2013. “My ranking dropped a lot during that period, and I’ve gone through some tough times on the court as well”. I kind of struggle with that a bit, so I just decided I wasn’t going to go.
