Wimbledon winner Andy Murray set to earn tens of millions as even more major sponsorship opportunities open up

As Andy Murray wakes up this morning he will undoubtedly feel that achieving his lifelong goal of winning Wimbledon has been worth all the pain and dedication that he has invested in the sport since he was a small boy in the town of Dunblane.

How he and his advisers develop the enormous potential of Brand Murray will of course be a critical factor. Obviously both Roger Federer and David Beckham spring to mind as valuable reference points. And indeed the process of transforming both his raw talent and somewhat dour manner has been well underway for many years. He has a list of positive associations as long as his outstretched arms (and that's some 'wingspan'!) to offer new sponsors - but there are always potential pitfalls which can undermine credibility and see sponsorship backing wiped out.

Of course it's nigh on impossible to envisage Murray finding himself confronted with disastrous situations such as those faced by Lance Armstrong and (albeit temporarily) Tiger Woods. But even off-the-cuff remarks can be blown out of all proportion by media commentators who watch for the slightest chink in a sporting celebrity's armour.

Murray first appeared on our own radar some seven years ago as the star attraction in the Aberdeen Cup between Scotland and England. As Britain's number one tennis player, Murray was already a huge attraction by then, so not surprisingly Aberdeen City Council Leader Kate Dean was delighted to welcome the Scot back to the tournament: "The inaugural Aberdeen Cup was a great success ... and I am confident that Andy Murray's phenomenal success this year will attract even more international media attention and so help put the region firmly on the map as a world-class venue for top sports events".

But it was about this time that he attracted a torrent of hate mail and damning publicity in the press when he said (in jest) that he'd support any team that was playing against England in football's 2006 World Cup.

The following year, Murray was world number seventeen and the nineteen-year-old tennis star - who of course hails from Dunblane - was signing what was believed to be at that time the biggest patch deal in tennis worldwide with Highland Spring, the leading UK bottled water producer. Dunblane is only ten miles from the Perthshire company's bottling plant.

Sally Stanley, marketing director of Highland Spring, said at the time: "We're so enthusiastic about supporting Andy as his winning spirit is a breath of fresh air. He is a fantastic ambassador for British tennis and his natural talent and dedication to succeed is an inspiration to young people. Andy is a great role model for British schoolchildren and he shares our passion for getting kids active and healthy while having some fun. We hope our association with Team Murray will encourage more children to take up new active sports like tennis and drink water instead of sugary soft drinks".

The success of players like Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal can have spinoff benefits for other parts of the game of tennis. For instance, in 2009 we picked up on the fact that Europe's largest tennis coaching organisation, Registro de Profesional Tenis (RPT), had confirmed that it was continuing with its UK sponsorship of the world's biggest junior tennis tournament – the Nike Junior Tour - as part of its "Grow The Game" strategy. The RPT's training is at least in part behind the success of the likes of Murray and Nadal and, basking in the reflected glory of superstars like them, the organisation is clearly aware of the benefits of the positive associations that come with such an image.

By 2010 Murray was poised to kick down the door and enter the game's super-elite ranks. When the ATP commissioned the world's top tennis players to create a series of one-of-a-kind self-portraits in celebration of their qualification for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, to be played at The O2 in London that year, we reported that " ... Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer have already qualified for the tournament. The remaining six places are still up for grabs, as a chasing pack featuring the likes of Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic and Andy Roddick continue to battle for rankings points at ATP World Tour events during the remainder of the season in order to finish among the Top 8".

Success breeds success. To date Murray's rise to the top has been characterised by far more success than failiure; but it has been a stop-start process, often involving one step back for every two steps forward. He has always needed to keep his head, keeping firmly in mind the words of Kipling which appear over the player's entrance to the Centre Court.

But with Andy Murray, it never really felt like an 'If ...' - it was always a 'When'. And now, as we all know, he has firmly established his place at the very pinnacle of the sport. For Murray, the next big test is how he shifts to a broader focus and fully exploits the massive financial benefits which surely await him - and, for interested sponsors, it will be how they address the equally massive task of negotiating an association with a fully-fledged sponsorship superstar.