Andy Murray made it possible Sunday, winning his country's hallowed tennis tournament to become the first British man in 77 years to raise the trophy at the All England Club.
Yes, this was history, and Murray's 6-4, 7-5, 6-4 victory over top-seeded Novak Djokovic was a fitting close to nearly eight decades of British frustration in its own backyard: A straight-setter, yes, but a hard-fought, 3 hour, 9 minute affair filled with long, punishing rallies and a final game that may have felt like another 77 years, with Murray squandering three match points before finally putting it away after four deuces.
On a cloudless, 80-degree day on Centre Court, Murray put his name beside that of Fred Perry, the last British man to win Wimbledon, back in 1936.
That sentence doesn't have to be written again.
The second-seeded Murray beat the best in Djokovic, a six-time Grand Slam winner known for both a mental and physical fitness built to handle what he faced Sunday: A crowd full of 15,000 partisans rooting against him, to say nothing of Murray himself, who, since falling to Roger Federer in the final last year, had shed some baggage by winning the Olympic gold medal on Centre Court, then following that with his first Grand Slam title at the U.S. Open.
