ANDY Murray risks losing his status as a byword for risible mediocrity.
The increasingly efficient Scot has seen his comedic form dip as he continues to make the final stages of competitions without falling over anything or having bits of his body drop off and explode.
Murray said: “Hopefully I’ll get wrapped up in the net, flapping about like a big, sulky dolphin. Or maybe I’ll just deliver a forehand smash to my own testicles.
“If I reach the final people may start thinking of me as an actual tennis player.”
He added: “I’m the fourth best in the world and while I’m in no danger of winning anything that matters, I do seem to have reached the point where I’ve stopped being laughable.
“Even being fifth would be funnier – constantly just missing out on semi-finals would be tragically comic.”
Experts have blamed Murray’s woeful comedic form on coach Ivan Lendl, who won Least Cheerful Man in Tennis for six years in a row in the 1980s.
Lendl stressed that he wanted to pass on his biggest strength to Murray – a fantastic inability to win Wimbledon.
He added: “In my day, bittersweet comedy wasn’t in fashion so when I won everything except Wimbledon people just saw it as something terribly sad, rather than an enormous cosmic punchline.
“I want to turn Andy into a trophy-capturing automaton that gets to the Wimbledon final every year and goes two sets up before turning into a dyspraxic jumble of pale, hairy limbs.
“It’s going to be fucking hilarious.”
