Andy Murray has called time on his career but his Wimbledon exploits will earn the two-time champion a statue at the championships, which will be unveiled in two years
Sir Andy Murray is set to become just the second person to have a statue at Wimbledon with the two-time winner set to be involved in the design, which will be unveiled ahead of the championships in 2027.
Murray claimed his first title at SW19 in 2013 and then won it again three yeas later. It was after his first success, when he became the first British man to win the title in 77 years, that the idea of a statue was first mentioned.
Fred Perry, the only other British man to win the Wimbledon men’s title, is the only person who currently has a statue within the grounds but Murray will now join him with the statue coming when the All England Club celebrates its 150th anniversary.
Elsewhere at Wimbledon there is a bust of Virginia Wade. Kitty Godfree, who won the first of her two Wimbledon titles in 1924, Dorothy Round, Angela Mortimer and Ann Jones have also been recognised. Murray, who played his last game at Wimbledon last year, will now join the esteemed list.
Wimbledon chairperson Debbie Jevans confirmed a sculpture was due to be revealed in two years as she told the Performance People podcast: “We looked at Rafa Nadal having that sort of plaque unveiled to him at Roland Garros which was all very special. We thought: ‘What do we want for Andy?’ We had a great celebration for Andy when he played his last match, which was on Centre Court.
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“And then when he came, when all the old players came and they greeted him and Sue Barker interviewed him. So we did a similar thing for him here last year but we are looking to have a statue of Andy Murray here and we’re working closely with him and his team.
“And the ambition is that we would unveil that on the 150th anniversary of our first championships, which was 1877, so would be in 2027. It will be lovely and really special. So he’s got to rightly be very involved in that and he and his team will be.”
The club have continued to hint at giving Murray a statue and last year American John McEnroe was asked whether Murray should get such an honour – giving an emphatic answer. “If I was making that decision, I would say absolutely, yes,” he said.
Murray won three Grand Slams in his career, the first of those coming in 2012 when he beat Novak Djokovic in the US Open final. He was also hugely successful at Queen’s, the warm-up tournament before Wimbledon, winning the title there on five occasions and that recently saw their main court named after him.
He said: “It was my most successful event; I always love coming back here at the start of the British summer. I’m very proud of the results I had here. I’m very grateful and thankful for whoever it was who decided to name the stadium this was.”
