Can Andy Murray win a Grand Slam in tennis?

I've watched Andy Murray's rise in tennis for many years now. From the days when he was a petulant youth winning the US Open Youth tournament, through to the current mature Andy Murray who has blossomed and now sits at number two in the world.

There's always been something indefinable about him; for a British tennis player (he's a Scotsman but is still British), he has the weight of the British public on his shoulders, especially as Tim Henman never managed to rise to the challenge.

When he reached his first Grand Slam final in 2008 it seemed to be a matter of time before he would finally win a Grand Slam. A year on we're waiting for his first Grand Slam and there are already doubters out there - they criticize his defensive play, and wonder if he has the ability or desire to become a winner.

This is perhaps a downfall of us Brits - somehow we expect the best from our athletes, but when they show just a little chink in their armour we tend to throw the towel in and apply so much pressure to them that there's no doubt that they will fail!

So will Andy Murray ever lift a Grand Slam title?

Tim Henman was one of the best tennis players to come out of Britain and despite never winning a Grand Slam he can hold his head high and say that he achieved much in the world of tennis - without Tim we may not have seen the likes of Andy Murray.

So what qualities does Andy have that Tim didn't:

• Andy has the ability to pull himself out of a hole. It seemed that once Tim got behind in a match he never had that fight to drag him from the brink - you never felt that once Tim was behind he could drag himself back into a game. Andy seems to be able to force a momentum change.
• Tim was too nice - Andy uses his anger to motivate himself and is often shouting and screaming at himself - Tim never shouted, never complained never lost his temper.
• Andy has the ability to win the important points - no matter how badly he is playing, he always seems to win a break point at the important time, or serve an ace when needed.

What are the weakness that Andy Murray has:

• Soft patches - as shown in the Semi Final of the Australian Open in 2012, Andy has the problem that he can go cold very quickly - at this level, you simply cannot let quality players off the hook - perhaps Andy Murray lacks the killer instinct?
• Too defensive - it has been said that Andy Murray sits back and waits for his opponent to make mistakes rather than attacking weakness - this is definately a problem against the top players, but it's something I see Ivan Lendl working on.
• Fitness - Andy did struggle with fitness for a few years, but he seems to be at peak fitness now - hopefully this will no longer be a problem.

These are my own observations and some experts may disagree, but even if you look at the way experts talk about Andy - they always say that it's a matter of time when he'll win a Slam - I don't recall one expert every saying that about Tim. From Andy's earliest days he had experts like John McEnroe stating that he would be a top ten player.

With the introduction of Ivan Lendl as Andy's coach in 2012, I feel that it's now a matter of When Will Andy Murray win a Grand Slam?, not Will Andy Murray win a Grand Slam?