Andy Murray reckons his Wimbledon centre court tears won him the respect of British public

ANDY MURRAY reckons crying at Wimbledon won him public respect.

The Scot ‘let the mask slip’ twice on Centre Court — after losing his first final and then again this year when winning his second SW19 crown against Milos Raonic.

And Murray, 29, has urged more men to open up about mental health issues by showing their true emotions.

Revealing he used to allow his frustration to boil over into anger, Murray said: “I work in a pretty emotional job.

“Whether I’m winning or losing there’s a huge amount going on under the surface.

“The pressure is always there and quite honestly, at times it’s hard to hide.

“In my younger years I sometimes struggled to manage what was going on in my head.

"Moments of anger or frustration would spill out and it rarely helped me win.

“But when I cried on Centre Court after losing to Roger Federer in 2012, some people saw me in a different light.

“People didn’t laugh or think less of me, it was the opposite. It felt like they respected me more.

“They respected me for letting off the pressure-cooker of emotion and for letting the mask slip.

“Sadly, many men don’t feel they can let the mask slip.

“Many men express their stresses and emotions in self-destructive and sometimes life-ending ways.

"They build up emotion and don’t have the tools to deal with what’s going on in their lives.”

Murray — who takes on Fernando Verdasco in the Paris Masters today as he aims to topple Novak Djokovic as world No 1 — hopes he can start a conversation around the issues in a bid to change attitudes among men.

He added: “Suicide rates in the UK identify a glaring problem for men.

“In 2014, there were 6,109 suicides in the UK and 4,623 of these were male, which means suicide is the biggest single killer of men aged under 45 in this country.

“It’s time to act. Suicide is very much a male epidemic, with men almost four times more likely than women to take their own life — but the reasons why are unclear.

“Together, we have the chance to make a genuine difference for an entire generation of men to start living their lives in a different way.”