Andy Murray has won the Arthur Ashe Humanitarian Award for the second time after donating £630,000 in prize money to Ukraine.
The former world No 1 announced the gesture in March, less than a month after Russia's harrowing invasion of the country began. The three-time Grand Slam champion admitted he found the images of families struggling "devastating," and that the opportunity to help was extra motivation on court.
Murray, who has overcome severe injury problems to prolong his pro career, said: “Shortly after I decided that from Indian Wells onwards, I would donate my prize money for the rest of the season to UNICEF’s humanitarian response – the final total was just over £630,000. It seemed like something that would give me some extra motivation this year."
Back in 2013, the Scot helped stage the Rally Against Cancer at Queen’s Club after his friend Ross Hutchins was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. A year later he became a UNICEF UK Ambassador and won the unique award - named after the 1975 Wimbledon champion - for the first time.
And the honour is equally as poignant this time around, with the 35-year-old acknowledging that the situation in Ukraine has put things back home into perspective: “When you see images of children on the news who were impacted by things like this, that makes it even more difficult to stomach," he said. "I have four young children who are really fortunate that everything is fine with them.
"But being a parent, it affects you differently. You try to put yourself in their shoes. If something like that happened with your own family, how difficult would that be? It is hard to fathom."
Only Andre Agassi, Roger Federer and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi can also lay claim to being double winners of the award. Murray also spoke about how he has broadened his overall outlook at the tail-end of his career.
"When I was younger, in my early 20s, I didn’t really think about anything else except my tennis," he added. "As you start to get older and maybe mature a little bit, you realise there are things that are more important than sport.”
It's not the first time the Scot has donated winnings to good causes. He also donated prize money from his 2019 Aegon Championships to the victims of the Grenfell Tower.
