Andy Murray
Last updated on: 2 February 2015. Andrew Barron "Andy" Murray OBE (born 15 May 1987) is a Scottish professional tennis player, ranked world No. 4. He started playing tennis at the age of three, entered his first competitive tournament at age five and was playing league tennis by the time he was eight. When he was 15 he moved to Barcelona to train at the Sánchez-Casal Academy. He won the junior US Open in 2004 and turned professional the following year. Murray has been ranked as British No. 1 since 27 February 2006. He achieved a top-10 ranking by the ATP for the first time on 16 April 2007, and reached a career peak of world No. 2 on 17 August 2009. Murray defeated Roger Federer at the 2012 Olympic Games in straight sets to win the gold medal in the men's singles final, becoming the first British singles champion in over 100 years. He also won a silver medal in the mixed doubles, playing with Laura Robson. At the 2012 US Open, Murray became the first British player since 1977, and the first British man since 1936, to win a Grand Slam singles tournament, when he defeated Novak Djokovic in five sets. This title made him the only British male to become a Grand Slam singles champion during the Open Era. On 7 July 2013, Murray won the 2013 Wimbledon Championships, becoming the first British man to do so since Fred Perry, 77 years previously. He again beat Djokovic in the final, this time in straight sets. Murray is the only man in history to have won Olympic Gold and the US Open in the same calendar year, as well as only the third man to hold the Gold Medal and two majors on different surfaces (after Andre Agassi and Rafael Nadal). Subsequent to his success at the Olympics and Wimbledon, Murray was voted the 2013 BBC Sports Personality of the Year. He has been the runner-up in six other singles Grand Slam finals: the 2008 US Open, the 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2015 Australian Open, and the 2012 Wimbledon Championships, losing three each to Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. He is the first man in the open era to achieve four runner-up finishes at the Australian Open, after losing to Djokovic in the final of the 2015 Australian Open. In 2011, Murray became only the seventh player in the Open Era to reach the semifinals of all four Grand Slam tournaments in one year. During the 2013 season he became the sixth man in tennis history to have won over $30 million in career prize money. After reaching the French Open semifinal in 2014 he became the tenth man to reach two or more semifinals at each of the four Majors.