The final Masters event of the year starts in Paris on Monday. If Andy Murray wins it, he could be the world's number-one-ranked tennis player by Sunday, another milestone in the unlikely tale of a superstar who remains extraordinarily ordinary.
That Murray comes from a part of the world near here probably accentuates that ordinariness. The exotic does tend to accompany distance after all, and, to Irish eyes at least, Dunblane is no Delhi.
Physically, if he wasn’t one of the most recognisable sportspeople on the plant, Murray could blend unobtrusively into any Junior 2 Gaelic football side from Durrus to Dungloe. That wild “sceagh” of hair, the enduring paleness despite years of playing exclusively under sunshine, not to mention a smile that’s hardly a miracle of expensive dental surgery, are immediately identifiable as ordinarily Celtic.
We're not talking Roger Federer's urbane continental charm or Rafael Nadal's bronzed charisma, or even the brooding enigma that is Novak Djokovic – one can picture any of them walking into a room and the atmosphere immediately changing. In contrast, Murray's reaction to attention is often as uncomfortable as those suits that he somehow always manages to make look off-the-peg. His fellow Scot Billy Connolly used to complain that whenever he wore something expensive it looked as if he'd stolen it. There's a touch of that about Murray.
When he revealed earlier this month that he had his very own stalker who’d trailed him around Europe and even got into his hotel room, the common reaction appeared to be: “Really? Murray? Who’d want to?” There was even a sense he got the incongruity himself.
Trappings of wealth
It’s more than that though. Murray is 29. He has long ceased to worry about money, and the trappings of wealth and fame have been available to him for long enough to have at least allowed his thatch to have become more stylishly unruly.
So the fact that it isn’t testifies either to a defiant determination not to bother or to a genuine carelessness about such fripperies. Either way, it’s a wonderfully refreshing instinct towards ordinariness, especially since the substance of what Murray has achieved is so extraordinary.
This is a guy from Scotland, for God's sake. Tennis champions don't come from Scotland. Fred Perry was from Stockport, but he was at the top of the game in the 1930s, practically a medieval era in terms of its relation to the modern game.
Tim Henman grew up in Oxfordshire with a grass court in the back garden and the sort of sound, sensible perspective that meant he was never going to break a British Wimbledon "drought" that most of us assumed was destined to last forever.
But a kid born in Glasgow, who had to cope with the reality of his parents splitting up, and the grotesque reality of hearing 16 children being murdered in his school, has altered everyone’s perspective and managed it without losing his own.
Murray has felt a lot of heat for his on-court demeanour from those harking back to the supposed halcyon days of McEnroe and co, when “characters” abounded and it seemed that actual tennis was only part of the show.
In comparison, the Scot can’t win, accused either of being boring or boorish, when in fact he’s neither. Instead, he does spectators the courtesy of behaving as if they’re not there.
Not preternaturally gifted enough to combine winning with attention-seeking, he brings remorseless concentration to one of sport’s most brutal environments, where stark physical and psychological strength is required just to be competitive. That some also expect Murray to display Dalai Lama-like levels of calm and graciousness is a sign of how divorced they are from the realities of that environment.
Considering his prospects all revolve around the contrary progress of a small ball, it is little wonder that Murray can erupt sometimes in splenetic fury.
Anyone can understand that, just as anyone can understand how, if you’re going to go “Tonto”, it’s those closest to you who cop the brunt, and everyone says sorry later; or how a perfectly reasonable reaction to overwhelming public attention is to shrink away rather than lap it up.
Sardonic
It probably helps that lurking behind Murray’s public diffidence is a sardonic sense of humour which testifies to an obviously sound and independent mind.
The resilient self-confidence required to bounce back repeatedly from Grand Slam defeats also can also be seen in calls such as employing Amélie Mauresmo as his coach or in the way he balances a well-publicised preference for an independent Scotland with playing his guts out for Britain in the Davis Cup. It is even evident in trifles such as reminding the BBC's John Inverdale that women get Olympic medals too.
Best of all, Murray has shown a notable preparedness to address doping issues in his sport, a stance that runs counter to many of his colleagues and carries the imprecise but unmistakable tone of someone legit.
It’s probably too big a stretch for Murray to rise to world number one this week. He himself has calculated it could be towards the middle of next year before it happens. But he’s playing his best tennis now, and it looks only a matter of time.
No doubt some will point to how Federer is ageing, how Nadal is crocked and how Djokovic seems strangely distracted. But if it happens, Murray will be a worthy 26th man to top the ATP rankings.
If time hadn’t conspired to place him against a trio of all-time greats, he would have long since managed it already. It will be a travesty if this admirably ordinary man’s extraordinary talent isn’t eventually vindicated by the rankings.
