Sir Andy Murray will enjoy a permanent legacy at Wimbledon after the All England Club announced it would be unveiling a statue in his honour at the 2027 championships. Debbie Jevans, the chair of the AELTC, said the club had been working with Murray and his team and would reveal the sculpture at the championship’s 150th anniversaryMurray, who retired last year and won the men’s singles title in 2013 and 2016, will have a hand in the design process and it would be understandable he wanted to pay close scrutiny to the project. The last time a statue was made in his honour, at a tournament in Shanghai in 2011, he was photographed next to a terracotta warrior that many claimed looked more like one of America’s founding fathers or José Mourinho.
Other sports stars have also been immortalised in statue form with decidedly mixed results. A bronze bust of Cristiano Ronaldo’s head at Madeira airport led to widespread criticism, while the Arthur Ashe memorial in Virginia also attracted derision when it was unveiled.
On the Performance People podcast, Jevans said the tournament wanted to honour Murray in a similar way to how the French Open had recognised Rafael Nadal this year to celebrate his 14 victories there. “We looked at Rafa Nadal having that sort of plaque unveiled to him at Roland Garros, which was all very special,” she said. “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. And then 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.”
Until now only Fred Perry, who won Wimbledon three times in the 1930s, has a full-length statue in the grounds of the club. However, the AELTC indicated in 2019 that Murray could be honoured with a full-length statue too.
There are five busts of British female champions displayed outside Centre Court – Kitty Godfree, who won the first of her two Wimbledon titles in 1924, Dorothy Round, Angela Mortimer, Ann Jones and Virginia Wade.
“When he won it was just so special, so special for him, so special for us as a club,” said Jevans. “Now he’s retired, we’re very much looking at how we can embrace him, for him to be a part of the club in the long term.”
The decision to build a statue for Murray, who also won the 2012 US Open and gold medals at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, will be widely welcomed. Last year, John McEnroe said Murray deserved it after becoming the first British man to win Wimbledon for 77 years. “If I was making that decision, I would say absolutely, yes, because that’s a long drought. He sad. “He’s absolutely changed the way people look at British tennis. He’s one of the greatest competitors that I’ve ever seen play tennis.
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“It would be well deserved, and it’d be awesome, because two of his three grand slam wins were at Wimbledon, plus the Olympics. So that would seem to make a whole lot of sense.”
Wimbledon’s announcement comes in the month Queen’s Club in west London renamed its centre court after Murray, with Emma Raducanu among those to hail Murray’s legacy and influence on the game.
