Andy Murray’s time has come, and let us all embrace it

Four years on, this is unmistakably his moment. His journey to the top has been quicker and more remarkable than I imagined.

He has beaten Roger Federer six times in eight matches; he has beaten Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.

The run to a first Grand Slam win is wide open and on paper everything is going for him — a faultless Queen's Club victory, a Nadal still struggling to shake off injury and a Federer who manifestly fears his game: it was Murray who worked out that single-handed players such as Federer find the high ball on the backhand very hard to put away; so look out for frequent use of that annoying, looping shot.

And watch the extraordinary ability to return the serve, something that is essential on grass, where just one mistake often decides a game.

On grass, his exceptional deftness of touch will also tip matches his way. The big hitters with no Plan B have no hope at Wimbledon.

People who loathe sport, and say it has no point, fail to appreciate that it is not a substitute for life but the real thing, the bread and circus of our times.

Sportsmen and women stand for something in the public mind: a nation, a value system, a passion, a free spirit, and so on.

They are there to stand proxy, however reluctantly, for us, who can't knock the skin off a bowl of custard.

But who will Murray be standing for? Is he essentially Scottish, in that casually dismissive way young Scots now apply to the English, or is he playing for Britain?

You always knew that Henman was playing for Middle England, whether that was on his mind or not.

His fans were largely made up of women of a certain age from the shires carrying teddy bears.

Murray, I think, is a Sean Connery in the making, a man who may have toned down his Scottishness for professional reasons but I believe that in his heart any triumph will be a blow struck for Scotland.

But first Murray has to win. It's a truism that winning your first major is enormously difficult.

I have more than once failed to win from 5-2 up in a social game on Highbury Fields with victory in my grasp, as sports commentators love to say, so what it feels like to be in a position to beat Federer or Nadal at Wimbledon is virtually unimaginable.

Strangely, there are people who thrive on this kind of pressure.

They play harder, better and more intuitively as the going gets tougher.

It's a very, very rare quality — possibly even a form of autism — and it is for this very rarity that we love them.

Not only can they do things we can't but they are hard-wired to compete.

Thus there comes a moment in most Murray matches when you can almost hear the cogs grinding as he changes his game in response to what's in front of him: he will slice relentlessly in a 15-shot rally until the opponent is driven to a suicidally risky shot; he will suddenly slow-ball, or play a drop shot, and then, equally unexpected, he will hit the ball very hard.

I don't know if it's Scottish and I don't really care but I do know that it is sublime.

But here is the conclusive proof that the boy is ready: four years ago, there he was saying his mum was making a fool of herself in the crowd.

This year he kissed her in public after winning Queen's.

That takes real courage for a 22-year-old. 

Justin Cartwright's new novel, To Heaven by Water, is published by Bloomsbury on 5 July.