MISERABLE ANDY OUT OF WIMBLEDON

No one can doubt that Andy Murray is a very good tennis player, certainly the best that Britain has ever produced. One can only wish that he was a more attractive personality.

His defeat at the hands of Sam Querrey in today's Wimbledon quarter-final was unexpected to say the least, though Murray looked increasingly uncomfortable as the match progressed and his virtual collapse in the final 2 sets surely indicated that he was not fully fit. His movement on court was even more 'porky' than usual and suggested continuing hip problems, while his contorted facial expressions suggested a man in all kinds of mental torment.

While some players appear quite bright and breezy, Murray always looks dull and miserable, except when letting out on of his jaw-splitting yells when he just looks plain ugly. He rarely seems to smile and his speech is slow and boring. His clothing on court is usually scruffy; his chosen colour schemes, Wimbledon whites excluded of course, tend to be dark and unattractive. He often sports the unshaven  appearance so beloved of many of today's trendy young men but which serves to simply suggest that they are unwashed as well as unkempt.

While Johanna Konta bubbles and smiles, Murray moans and grimaces. Konta gets on with it, while Murray bemoans his misfortune at every turn. Murray is dour, unsmiling and not all attractive, while Konta is the exact opposite. Given his career success and apparently very happy family life, why does Murray always seem to come across as such a miserable git ?

Murray is out of Wimbledon for this year which is a shame, but at least we'll be spared his miserable on-court persona. We still have Jo Konta to cheer for though and here's hoping that she can make up for the disappointment of Murray losing his crown.

LIONS DRAW WITH ALL BLACKS : NO WINNER ?

One of the great international contests ended on Saturday in a draw, with two incredibly tough teams fighting each other to a standstill. A draw between the British and Irish Lions and the New Zealand All Blacks was not only a fair result it was the right result, and yet some are whining about there not being a result at all.

In some sports there has to be a winner. Tennis, in particular, is one-on-one with a scoring system which does not allow for a  draw. However, football, cricket, and many others routinely produce draws and a draw in rugby, while less common, is a legitimate outcome. Unfortunately, modern audiences seem to shy away from anything other than a 'win-lose' outcome and so we have races of all sorts, between people, horses, cars, dogs and anything else that comes to mind, decided by thousandths of a second. Can we really determine which competitor has crossed the finishing line first down to such a level, indeed, should we ?

In days gone by, before the incredibly fine timing and high speed cameras that we have today, 'dead heats' were frequently the outcome of races. When competitors have given their all and yet cross the line within a hair's breadth of each other, do we really need to separate them by the odd thousandth of a second, an interval of time that none of us can imagine, let alone determine, without the aid of specialised technology ?

Those who complain about the outcome of Saturday's wonderful rugby match and argue for some way of determining 'a winner', are misguided. There are scoring systems in rugby which allow for such tinkering when it is essential, as in the Six Nations' or World Cup competitions, but this was a series of 3 stand-alone matches with no need to determine an absolute 'winner'. In fact, both teams emerged as winners and with huge credit from 3 terrifically hard fought games. 

Neither side deserved to lose and it would have been a travesty if some artificial mechanism had been introduced to ensure that a 'winner' emerged. This series will go down in history as one of the great international contests and that both the final match and the series ended as draws will serve only to enhance its status in the folk lore of Rugby Union. In truth, everybody won.