Unless you have been hidden under a rock for the last fortnight, you can’t have failed to miss the Wimbledon Tennis tournament taking place in the capital. I don’t watch as much tennis as I should but I do try to catch some of the best matches when it takes place. British hopeful Andy Murray became the first Briton in 74 years to get to the men’s final and the pressure was on him to deliver that first elusive title since Fred Perry.
There is no doubt Andy is a great talent and being ranked 4th in the world clearly demonstrates this but as a popular face and celebrity he hasn’t always won the British public over. Many saw him as a dour Scot who always looked miserable even when he had won and fairly emotionless. However, yesterday he was sadly beaten by (in my opinion) the greatest Tennis player to ever pick up a racket Roger Federer. He lost and the emotion came flooding out when he was asked to talk about the match. He started to cry and for that one moment, when his voice broke, he seemed to reach out to the British public and I found myself feeling really sorry for him. Yes he still took home more than half a million pounds in prize money but you could see just how much he wanted to win it for everyone in Britain and I think this might be the major turning point in his career with the public’s affection for him.
I think he did a great job and did himself proud – this was his ‘Gazza’ Italia 90 moment where everyone stopped and felt the same thing for one special talent. I hope he comes back next year and wins the whole thing. One thing is for sure he may have lost the battle but I think he may now be winning the war.
Do you think this has had a significant effect on his reputation?
UPDATE: The Drum has just reported that sentiment towards him on social media went from -19% to +41%.
Chris Norton is the founder of Prohibition and an award winning communications consultant with more than twenty years’ experience. He was a lecturer at Leeds Beckett University and has had a varied PR career having worked both in-house and in a number of large consultancies. He is an Integrated PR and social media blogger and writes on a wide variety of blogs across a huge amount of topics from digital marketing, social media marketing right through to technology and crisis management.
