Andy Murray is coming off a season in which he became the first British man in 76 years to win a Grand Slam singles title and won Olympic gold at the London Games but the Scot does not think he has done enough to deserve a knighthood yet.
The 25-year-old received the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in a special U.K. New year Honours list, though some of his supporters thought his victories at the US Open and Olympics warranted a higher honour.
Bradley Wiggins, the first British cyclist to win the Tour de France, and Ben Ainslie, the most decorated Olympic yachtsman, received knighthoods but Murray said he would have to accomplish much more before he could perhaps one day join them.
“You need to do a lot, for a long time, to deserve an honour like that,” Murray told a news conference at the Brisbane International on Tuesday.
“A lot of the sportsmen and women have been given that just because their sport isn’t necessarily in the spotlight all the time, it’s easy to forget what they’ve done for 10, 15 years. “I mean, some of them have won 10 gold medals in world championships, four or five Olympic medals, and have been doing it for years.
“I’ve only been doing it for a couple years, so I think I’ll definitely need to win a few more matches and have more tournaments to have a chance of getting that.” Sir Sean Connery and Sir Alex Ferguson were in Murray’s corner as spectators during the US Open but he said he only referred to them as Sean and Alex. “I think with the people around you, I think everyone just kind of stays the same, and then it would be people that you don’t know that will come up to you and address you as that,” Murray said.
“But I would hope I wouldn’t want my friends and family to call me that.” Murray’s win over Novak Djokovic at the US Open in September has finally freed him of the questions about when he would make his grand slam breakthrough. The world No. 3 said winning Olympic gold and his first major in the same year had had its perks but with a coach like Ivan Lendl to guide him he was never likely to get carried away by the success.
“The few weeks afterwards around the Olympics time and the US Open, I got a few upgrades on flights and things like that, which is nice, but that’s died down a little bit over the last few months,” he said.
“Life hasn’t changed too much. Obviously the few weeks afterwards were very busy. Then once you start travelling and playing tournaments again, and get back into the routine of training and practicing, it hasn’t really changed that much, to be honest, which has been nice.
