Andy Murray refuses to be sucked into celebrity vacuum despite his raised profile after US Open triumph The man of the hour, whose stony-faced persona has often been misconstrued as sullen, stared down one inquisitor (American, naturally) with magnificent disdain: "I'm very, very happy on the inside. I'm sorry if I'm not showing it as you would like. To look at Murray beside his US Open trophy was to wonder briefly if so fabulous a prize might change him. But to listen to him was to conclude, with a feeling of profound relief, that it would not. As he disembarked the red-eye at Heathrow yesterday morning, he was cheered on all sides of the arrivals hall but hardly seemed a vision of A-list celebrity in his jeans and hooded sweater. Granted, he might live in a £5 million, six-bedroom house in Oxshott, a section of Surrey stockbroker belt studded with Chelsea footballers" mansions, but in every other compartment of his life he embraces the virtues of simplicity. What he wanted most, he said after a publicity blitz that included a photo-shoot in Central Park's Sheep Meadow and a TV slot with Matthew Perry of Friends, was to see his two dogs. It was incidental to him that he also brought a winner's cheque for $1.9 million (£1.18m) back through customs yesterday. Murray's detached attitude to money could roughly be equated to that of Rory McIlroy, who stands to win $10million (£6.2million) at next week's FedEx Cup climax in Atlanta but who, according to what his father once told me, almost never carries any cash around. For these two dominant twenty-somethings of British sport, any acquisitive instincts are focused solely upon the addition of major titles. Besides, on what do we suppose the unaffected Murray might lavish his US Open gains? Vast platters of salmon sashimi? Luxury collars for Maggie May and Rusty, his beloved border terriers? The bill for his after-party at Hakkasan, a temple of Shanghai chic on West 43rd Street, is reported to have come to an impressive $6,448 (£4,000), but Murray can hardly be held responsible for that. According to the tab, two bottles of Louis Roederer champagne and 17 "zesty martinis" had been consumed, but none of them by the champion himself. "The problem was when I arrived, everyone was so drunk already," Murray admitted. It would have taken a while to catch up, so I didn't bother. This week he can make do instead with the bottles of Irn-Bru generously provided by the British consulate. After a few days, once he has headlined tomorrow's Olympic parade in Glasgow, he will have eliminated even the odd calorific soft drink from his intake. Murray has an ATP championship to defend in Tokyo early next month and there is no person more committed, after the catharsis of his US Open victory at Flushing Meadows, to maintaining his upward trajectory. Plus, he relishes the notion of restoring normality. Here is a young man, who to common knowledge and except for one brief hiatus, has had only one serious girlfriend. Here is an endearingly private soul, who, upon sitting down for lunch in May with mentor Ivan Lendl, confessed he was concerned about what would happen if he won a slam. I said I worried how my life might change, because I didn't want it to change. Lendl counselled that all he would notice was the offer of unlimited free golf. But the only freedom Murray craves is to be left alone, with the company of the people and the dogs he loves most. If that renders him different, then it is a difference to be celebrated.