Andy Murray Reveals The Dark Phase of His Life – “I Had Lots of Anxiety”

The documentary, ‘Andy Murray: Resurfacing’ is set to release this Friday, November 29, 2019, and in that the Brit revealed the dreadful incident which happened to him at the age of nine. He was one of the victims at the Dunblane Primary School, he and his brother, Jamie Murray witnessed the gunman, Thomas Hamilton who shot dead 16 children and a teacher in their school.

The tragic event of his life was publicized for the first time on Amazon Prime’s documentary, and the three-time Grand Slam champion, Andy Murray elaborated how tennis became an escape to erase the thoughts of the appalling scenes of from his childhood. (Earlier on BBC programme in 2013, he gave a gest it but did not elaborate upon the incident.)

“You asked me a while ago why tennis was important to me. Obviously I had the thing that happened at Dunblane. When I was around nine,” Andy Murray told film-maker Olivia Cappuccini.

“I am sure for all the kids there it would be difficult for different reasons. The fact we knew the guy, we went to his kids’ club, he had been in our car, we had driven and dropped him off at train stations and things.”

Exactly 12 months after the Dunblane massacre, Andy’s parents Judy and William got divorced. His brother Jamie left home to play tennis in the other city. The separation of his parents and the departure of his brother everything severely effected Andy.

The immature, Murray was unable to accept such mishaps at a tender age and consequently, the former World Number one of tennis suffered from anxiety attacks.

“Within 12 months of that happening, our parents got divorced. It was a difficult time for kids. To see that and not quite understand what is going on.  And then six to 12 months after that, my brother also moved away from home. He went away to train to play tennis in Cambridge. We obviously used to do everything together. When he moved away that was also quite hard for me,” Murray expounded.

In the midst of all the adversities which cloaked the Brit’s existence and to breathe in the claustrophobic living environment, tennis was the only solution to it. Tennis helped Andy to move on with the bitter realities of his life. 

“Around that time and after that, for a year or so, I had lots of anxiety but that came out when I was playing tennis. When I was competing I would get really bad breathing problems. My feeling towards tennis is that it’s an escape for me in some ways. Because all of these things are stuff that I have bottled up,” Murray continued.

“I don’t know because we don’t talk about these things. They are not things that are discussed. The way that I am, on the tennis court, I show some positive things about my personality and I also show the bad things and things I really hate. Tennis allows me to be that child, that has all of these questions and that’s why tennis is important to me,” Andy Murray added.

On Monday, the world premiere of the movie, ‘Andy Murray: Resurfacing’ was held at the Curzon Bloomsbury in London. The movie is based on the career-saving hip surgery of the legend which he underwent after Australian Open 2019. The documentary is featuring his mother Judy, brother Jamie and wife Kim Sears.

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