New York warms to Andy Murray

New York's very own tennis great John McEnroe, a regular commentator at Wimbledon, has long been a fan of the tenacity and potential of Andy Murray (pictured). Now the rest of the city wants to know: who is this man with the spindly frame and surly manner who managed to beat the world number one Rafael Nadal on Sunday to make it to the final of the US Open at Flushing Meadows? Who, if he can beat Roger Federer today, will be the first Brit to win the Open since Fred Perry in 1936?

As the former British player John Lloyd puts it: "He's very different to the sort of British player that the Americans have been used to seeing over the years. They like someone who throws it all out on the court. Andy likes to do that." In other words, he's a lot more like their hero McEnroe in temperament than he is like Tim Henman.

Tennis correspondent Johnette Howard wrote on Newsday.com last night: "Viewers dropping in on him for the first time had to find the spindly young man before them a little surprising. This gangly guy with the scraggly, starter beard and clumps of curls poking out of his baseball cap was the giant-killer on the verge of taking down a rippling strongman such as Nadal?

"This narrow-shouldered kid with a fondness for hip-hop music, the goofball comic Will Ferrell, and yanking up his shirt-sleeve to reveal biceps that remain merely the size of your average dinner roll despite a year of hard work, is one of the next big things in men's tennis? Well ... Yes."

Howard concludes: "Murray slouches and speaks in such a dreary monotone at his news conferences. But he has a delightful personality. You just have to wait him out to find it. On court, he can actually be a bit of a churl. He has a little of McEnroe's SoB moods and fire in him - but that's a good thing, too, given the history he's bucking back home."