You can probably count the number of great Scottish tennis players on one finger. Think about it for a moment and you may just fall asleep.

Against Richard Gasquet, Andy Murray captured the imagination of the great English public. The shadows were lengthening over Wimbledon, the gloom gathered over Centre Court and Dunblane's bravest heart pumped those fists for the last time.

Murray, both infuriating and sublime in the same sentence, finally beat French swashbuckler Gasquet, ensuring a place in the Wimbledon men's singles quarter-final. The fact that he was eventually beaten by the breathtaking Rafa Nadal is neither here nor there.

From the jaws of near-certain defeat, Murray had dragged himself back into a match he had no right to win. Two sets down and heading for the locker room, Murray summoned good old-fashioned British grit.

You see, when the chips are down and all hope is lost, the British stick two fingers up at adversity. Gasquet was all French flourish and finesse, a throwback to the days of a player called Henri Leconte. Wimbledon would always remember the endearing Henri.

Gasquet had gone through the entire back catalogue of strokes: chipping and charging the net whenever necessary, thumping the forehand winners and then lobbing Murray as if he were not there.

But Andy Murray was all raw resilience, charging back like a rampant bull. Unlike his predecessor, a bloke by the name of Tim Henman, Murray behaved like a man possessed. He knew the partisan Wimbledon crowd were on his side and he would never let them down.

Murray is the original streetfighter, full of anger, aggression and very public displays of emotion. When the points were going against him and the match slipping away, Murray just ran into the crowd, punched the air and roared defiance.

The Murray body language was intriguing. Those gestures and mannerisms gave us all sorts of clues. When the drop shots were at their most delightful, Murray just jumped for joy. When the forehand winners fizzed down the line, he turned on his heel and launched into a war dance.

If Murray ever does win the men's singles final then some of us will just abandon ourselves to alcohol. He may be mean, moody and an apparent miseryguts but Murray is a Scottish stick of dynamite ready to explode.

As Tim Henman fades into the dreaming spires of Oxford, Andy Murray is about to wake everybody up. He is a fast, furious Scotsman who may just become the first British men's singles winner since Fred Perry way back in 1936.