Desperately Seeking Andy Murray

The things one will do to get an interview - in this case with teenage tennis "sensation" Andy Murray. Turn up at 11am on the third floor of an NCP car park in the middle of the dodgiest bit of Soho, Nikki French, the Lawn Tennis Association's PR, tells me. Nor is this the only instruction. "We would only be able to offer you five to 10 minutes with Andy ... and the feature you put together must be focused on the Raw Tennis initiative." I have been trying to get an interview with Murray since April, so we will have to take these restrictions on the chin.

The Brewer Street car park, just up the road from the Soho Cabaret, is the ideal place to launch Raw Tennis (slogan: "No Time For Love"), an attempt to dispel the sport's middle-class, whiter than white image and make it "cool". The car park is nothing if not cool at 11 o'clock, and it's certainly not the sort of place you would find Tim Henman's actuarial father, unless he was parking his BMW. A tennis court has been rigged up and a bunch of London kids are showing off their skills - not just forehands and backhands, but juggling, break dancing, and a tennis version of keepy-uppy to a hip-hop soundtrack while a dozen TV crews and a score of journalists wait for Murray. Murray, like all good celebrities, knows the value of lateness, and finally arrives at 11.40.

Gawky, scruffy and delightfully ungroomed, Murray blends in perfectly with the jugglers and the break dancers. He also throws himself enthusiastically into the matches between teams of youngsters, missing two volleys in a row. "It's got to be tougher than playing Greg Rusedski," says someone uncharitably. Then come the interviews ... TV and radio first (it's amazing how a padded anorak, a camera and a fluffy microphone get you an entrée), then magazines ("We want this to be a consumer event," says another PR person, bafflingly), and finally, just after 1.30, the long-suffering, foot-stamping "nationals", who cluster round Murray.

A few gentle serves first. Did you enjoy that? "It was great fun." Why does tennis have an image problem? "It's just a British thing." Then a tricky lob. How can Murray attack the LTA's mishandling of his elder brother Jamie's career one day and act as an LTA "ambassador" the next? (The sport section will explain how Murray smashed a winner at this point.) As a sensitive feature writer, I will of course need some special time with Andy after this group interview, to probe exactly how this shy (some say surly) youth is handling sudden stardom. We feature writers despise these hopeless huddles and brief banalities. We seek Truth. That usually requires at least an hour, but on this occasion "five to 10 minutes" will have to suffice.

The dailies are dismissed and the Sundays form their own huddle. Then it is my turn. My 10 minutes with the teenage tennis sensation has come. Except that it hasn't. Andy is exhausted - his stamina has always been in doubt - and no doubt bored of being asked the same three questions. My meeting with Andy is on hold. Truth will have to wait. As for the LTA initiative, I anticipate Britain having a world champion at tennis keepy-uppy within five years, and if the Davis Cup is ever played in a Soho car park, we should be unbeatable. Hope that's OK, Nikki.