Murray Wins BBC Sports Personality Of The Year Award

Andy Murray’s dominant 2015 season was honoured on Sunday, as the Scot was named the BBC Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY) for the second time in three years.

Also the award recipient in 2013 following his historic run to the Wimbledon title, Murray was named the British sportsman of the year once again. The 28 year old is the year-end World No. 2 in the Emirates ATP Rankings after posting a 71-14 win-loss mark and guiding Great Britain to its first Davis Cup crown in 79 years.

“Thank you very much,” said an emotional Murray. “I didn’t expect this. I dedicate my life to this sport and I work extremely hard every day to make you proud.”

Following a final run at the Australian Open – his eighth at the Grand Slam stage – Murray would claim his first tour-level clay-court crown in Munich. He immediately followed that with an upset win over Rafael Nadal in Madrid for his 10th Masters 1000 title and later notched No. 11 with victory over Novak Djokovic in Montreal. Murray would also enjoy success on grass, earning a fourth Queen’s Club title, en route to qualifying for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals for an eighth successive year.

Countrymen Kyle Edmund, Jamie Murray, James Ward, Dominic Inglot, Daniel Evans and Davis Cup captain Leon Smith were in attendance as Murray won the coveted award with more than 35 per cent of the public vote. The Davis Cup squad also won Team of the Year. The Scot was presented with the trophy by Northern Ireland boxing legend Barry McGuigan, in front of a sell-out 7,500 crowd at the SSE Arena in Belfast. He received more than 1,000,000 votes in total, with rugby star Kevin Sinfield finishing second with 278,353 and heptathlete Jessica Ennis-Hill third with 78,898.

Murray is the fourth different tennis player to win the award in its 62-year history, after Ann Jones in 1969, Virginia Wade in 1977 and Greg Rusedski in 1997.