Andy Murray Takes A Step In The Right Direction

As the dust settles on a historic Wimbledon Final won by the greatest player of all-time Roger Federer for the seventh time, I will now look at the positives from Andy's point of view.

First up he got one monkey off his back by becoming the first British man to reach a Wimbledon Singles Final since 1938. Second, he got another monkey off his back by winning his first set in a slam final. He played with much more aggression and carried on fighting to the end.

Now people here are falsely claiming Andy doesn't have another gear but to me that is nonsense. The match turned on the second set outcome. Andy made all the running, had the vast majority of break points whilst holding serve comfortably and just couldn't get the break. From nowhere Roger got the break and that was a shock to the system that he never recovered from. Where Andy's level dipped, the momentum swung full circle and the boost Roger got from his smash and grab raid was immense and allowed him to really relax and express himself. No complaints whatsoever on the end result but the match was decided on fine margins as if Andy had won that second set I would have been gobsmacked if he had lost from there.

As for the future what does it hold for Andy? Well we know he likes hard courts and the US Open should see him put in another storming challenge for that slam. Obviously, the competition remains immense but are there rays of light at the end of the tunnel? Roger will no doubt be buoyed and licking his lips for another slam but Novak Djokovic, in his last two slams has looked vulnerable almost losing to Seppi and Tsonga at RG and losing tamely to Roger at Wimbledon in the semis. Question marks being asked? Perhaps. Rafael Nadal was clay master once more but tendonitis back in his knee and a shock Second Round defeat against a world No.103 will have knocked his confidence somewhat so needs to re-establish himself. Andy will be buoyed once his disappointment fades by the fact he has now proved he can compete with the very best in slam finals and will feel he is well placed among the quartet to make another push for that elusive slam. No one is saying it will be easy but at least, and irt cannot be denied, that he is heading in the right direction.

I think he has the gears to go up in matches, I think in terms of what can he can do to his game that helps win 7 matches in a BO5 and the time is another question. You need to look at his game and ask how long realistically would it take for 'improvements' to kick into his game.

Djokovic with his first serve and power on his FH. 2009 was the lowest point for his serve and where it was and then it took 18 months really for him to go back to it's effectiveness. Federer in sharpening his volleying took for 12 months to show it's best. Nadal has recently tried to incorporate power into his game so that will take time to show any improvements.

Murray is on the right track. His mentality in terms of toughness has improved leaps and bounds.

The FH is something he is using in his play more and more and is not frightened to go a heavy FH in the rally. If he misses I tend to call it a good miss because it's the right play. The 2nd serve. I would bet that he does serve around 100mph on it in practice. For me he needs to add variety for 2nd serve because the speed is something I don't think he is looking to incorporate.

I probably agree with the overall sentiment of the article. I do like the description of the 'smash and grab raid' Fed made on the second set. It perfectly sums up how Fed 'stole' that set. He won it in a spectacular way but in terms of how Fed played in that set, probably Fed deserved it less than Murray and Murray probably felt that way too. Hence why I think it had the critical impact it did. Even after the rain delay I didn't think Murray or many players would recover well from that set back. Maybe Djokovic (of 2011) or Nadal, but no else. I don't think Murray needs an extra gear, what he probably needs is a bit more mental toughness training so he can handle the great disappointment of losing a set which really, he deserved more.

luciusmann wrote:I probably agree with the overall sentiment of the article. I do like the description of the 'smash and grab raid' Fed made on the second set. It perfectly sums up how Fed 'stole' that set. He won it in a spectacular way but in terms of how Fed played in that set, probably Fed deserved it less than Murray and Murray probably felt that way too. Hence why I think it had the critical impact it did. Even after the rain delay I didn't think Murray or many players would recover well from that set back. Maybe Djokovic (of 2011) or Nadal, but no else. I don't think Murray needs an extra gear, what he probably needs is a bit more mental toughness training so he can handle the great disappointment of losing a set which really, he deserved more.

I don't fully agree there. I feel what Andy really needs now is to get his first serve to become even more consistent than what it is now but with more pop on the delivery so that it can give him more cheap winning points thus conserving his energies. Also his second serve still needs major room for improvement, where he needs to somehow get his delivery on the second serve to become almost as fast as his first serve with enough consistency, like what Pete Sampras managed to do with his serve by 2000/2001.

CaladonianCraig. Do you want me to be honest?

gboycottnut wrote: I don't fully agree there. I feel what Andy really needs now is to get his first serve to become even more consistent than what it is now but with more pop on the delivery so that it can give him more cheap winning points thus conserving his energies. Also his second serve still needs major room for improvement, where he needs to somehow get his delivery on the second serve to become almost as fast as his first serve with enough consistency, like what Pete Sampras managed to do with his serve by 2000/2001.

You think? Even those with big serves (and consistent serves) like Roddick haven't dealt with Fed successfully despite coming close in Wimbledon finals. Fed only got a look in on Roddick's serve once in the entire match and still won. Roddick even managed to get over the immense disappointment of amazingly losing the second set in his Wimby '09 final. Fed is a tough cookie to crack in a Wimbledon final, that's for certain. But I'm not sure there can be little disagreement that Murray played better in that second set yet he was the poor chap who didn't get it.

Despite the "smash and grab" raid on the second set Murray should still have been able to recover from it. He did the same last year when he lost the second to Nadal when he should have won it. Nadal could have finished Federer long before he did in 2008 but recovered from the setbacks of Federer clinging on for dear life and snekaing sets to finally beat him. Murray seems to slip back into passive tennis when he has his man on the ropes.

Mind you, I never thought it before but I think Murray WILL win a slam one day but I predict a few more tears of anguish before tears of joy. I reckon it'll be one or two more finals before he finally does it.

Well, it is a step in the right direction. Murray certainly started very well and if Fed hadn't upped his level who knows what might have happened.

I hope he learns valuable lessons from this and goes on to have an excellent hard court season.

Muzza gave the match away after the 2nd set. The top 3 know he will give in to the pressure as always at the slams. How can a number 4 have such a rusted forehand? Ferrer should have beat him!

Murray looked quite comfortable in his match against Ferrer though. Anyway how can anyone like Ferrer he's so booooooring.

Lets look at his progress to date.

At the moment he's kind of "The King of Bo3" format...but he cant seem to become a "King of Bo5" formats. Therein lies the issue. It would seem that as matches go on longer he cant keep up early momentums. Sunday was a perfect illustration of that. This surely points to mental weakness...physically he seems strong. But we saw on Sunday how tired he appeared to become at the end of the 2nd set. And as he gets more tired he seems to get increasingly down on himself and the vicious circle starts. Admittedly he's getting better at managing his negativity but you feel its a strain for him to contain it...perhaps even containing it costs him energy.

Its like he doesnt believe he can truly win against the best as matches drag on...or rather its like he's vulnerable to fatigue setting in for which the top 3 dont seem to be. They focus and stay in the zone for pretty much the whole match without loss of form or mental strength. This is the key for Murray...transitioning his strength from Bo3 to Bo5.

Also...people keep drawing parallels with Lendl but I dont see it beyond the slam losing numbers. Lets look further...

Lendl lost his first slam final in 1981 on clay in 5 sets against clay god Borg...so it was very close indicating he had the self-belief to start with. In cointrast Murray's first 3 slam final losses were largely chokes/underperforms. Also, by the time Lendl won he first slam at 24 years old in 1984, he had already won 3 year end Championships over 5 set formats. So again he had proved he could win the really big 5 set events outside slams. And again Murray hasnt done this.
Lendl by the time he won his first slam had won 40 titles....guess how many of these were over Bo5 format...25! Lendl proved he was able to win over Bo5 formats in finals...Murray hasnt. This seems to be his sticking point.

In those 4 slam finals lost Lendl won 4 sets, Murray has won 1. But the biggest difference is that Lendl was a work in progress....he had huge deficiencies in his game...particularly volleying...in 1984 he hired Tony Roach for specific volleying training and never looked back afterwards. I dont see that Murray has "huge" deficiencies...yeah his 2nd serve could be more powerful but its not a glaring weakness losing him slam finals.

Anyway my point is dont look to the parallel with Lendl too much - the devil is in the detail. Murray is making inroads no doubt when we compare this year with last...but I still think he has a far way to go to succeed over 5 sets rather than 3 in the business end matches.

Any talk about the potency of Murray's serve should be against the background of interesting stats about the sets Fed has won in his GS finals at Wimbledon.
Nearly all his winning sets in those finals have been in tiebreaks. I think Murray was the first of his victims against whom Fed did not need at least one tiebreak.
So it shows that even at his peak Fed was not a great breaker of serve in Wimbledon finals but managed to get past Andy by setting up any number of break points and, eventually, breaks themselves.

legendkillarV2 wrote: If he misses I tend to call it a good miss because it's the right play

Good point. Too many people suggested he choked on that break point - when he went for an outrageous winner that didn't come off

Interestingly he did the same in the French QF

i.e. he's happy to miss - an important development as even I would agree that a year ago Andy was only happy when he didn't miss

Its kinda funny when you read what Federer said about Murray before AO10...

“I know he’d like to win the first [Grand Slam title] for British tennis in, what is it, 150,000 years,” Federer joked in a post-match interview.

“The poor guy has to go through those moments over and over again. It’s always very tactical against him. Andy, if you’re listening to me, here’s how it will go. I’ll come in on your backhand and you’ll pass me, I’ll drop-shot you and you’ll lob me. I’ll hit it between the legs. It will be something like that.”

“He’s in his second Grand Slam final now. I think the first one’s always a bit tougher than the second one, but not winning the first one doesn’t help second time around. He’s also playing me, someone who’s won many Grand Slams and been able to win here three times. I know what it takes and how to do it, which is definitely an advantage.

"I don’t feel like the pressure’s really on me having to do it again, because I’ve done it before. I think he really needs it more than I do. I think the pressure’s big on him. We’ll see how he’s going to handle it. It’s not going to be easy for him, that’s for sure.”

The bit in bold was somewhat prescient of the 30-30 point at 5-6!!! Seems Roger is able to read Murray like a book...?

banbrotam wrote:

legendkillarV2 wrote: If he misses I tend to call it a good miss because it's the right play

Good point. Too many people suggested he choked on that break point - when he went for an outrageous winner that didn't come off

Interestingly he did the same in the French QF

i.e. he's happy to miss - an important development as even I would agree that a year ago Andy was only happy when he didn't miss

Exactly.

It was frustrating because he can make those kind of shots.

Some of his FH's find the net when he goes big and heavy. The thing is he isn't used to that play and who knows what kind of shot that will be in another 6 months.

legendkillarV2 wrote:

banbrotam wrote:

legendkillarV2 wrote: If he misses I tend to call it a good miss because it's the right play

Good point. Too many people suggested he choked on that break point - when he went for an outrageous winner that didn't come off

Interestingly he did the same in the French QF

i.e. he's happy to miss - an important development as even I would agree that a year ago Andy was only happy when he didn't miss

Exactly.

It was frustrating because he can make those kind of shots.

Some of his FH's find the net when he goes big and heavy. The thing is he isn't used to that play and who knows what kind of shot that will be in another 6 months.

The thing is all of them go missing occasionally and make bad shots - people shouldn't make out as this is a sign of not having any nerve. If I hear someone else say that "the best hold thier nerve at crucial points" I'll scream - simply because all of the Top 4 have been guilty of throwing away chances against each other during the past year

Now that's not a weakness on their part - rather a strength of their opponents. Hence Murray has now had Nadal rattled in two of their last three meetings (and yes he did bottle his big break point chance at last years Wimbledon) beating him with a 6-0 set in their last meeting and has beaten Nole plus had that Aus SF and of course had Roger on the ropes

However, his periods of intensity against these players which is now guaranteed for a couple of hours , which is a great improvement, must get up to the 3hr mark

banbrotam wrote:

legendkillarV2 wrote:

banbrotam wrote:

legendkillarV2 wrote: If he misses I tend to call it a good miss because it's the right play

Good point. Too many people suggested he choked on that break point - when he went for an outrageous winner that didn't come off

Interestingly he did the same in the French QF

i.e. he's happy to miss - an important development as even I would agree that a year ago Andy was only happy when he didn't miss

Exactly.

It was frustrating because he can make those kind of shots.

Some of his FH's find the net when he goes big and heavy. The thing is he isn't used to that play and who knows what kind of shot that will be in another 6 months.

The thing is all of them go missing occasionally and make bad shots - people shouldn't make out as this is a sign of not having any nerve. If I hear someone else say that "the best hold thier nerve at crucial points" I'll scream - simply because all of the Top 4 have been guilty of throwing away chances against each other during the past year

Now that's not a weakness on their part - rather a strength of their opponents. Hence Murray has now had Nadal rattled in two of their last three meetings (and yes he did bottle his big break point chance at last years Wimbledon) beating him with a 6-0 set in their last meeting and has beaten Nole plus had that Aus SF and of course had Roger on the ropes

However, his periods of intensity against these players which is now guaranteed for a couple of hours , which is a great improvement, must get up to the 3hr mark

How many times though have you seen a Murray match and he when he is flowing, the shots are hitting the lines and he is getting his variety in the perfect blend and then he plays what I call a big match and then misses a few of these shots. It is a mixture of tightening up or playing too loose. Look at the first set when Federer blinked. His nerves were early in the match and he managed to deal with them as the match went on, Murray started like a house on fire and then you could say that the nerves got to him at the mose crucial part of the match.

It happens. It is just a case of frequency and how to overcome them.

I think Murray, unlike the other 3, hasn't had a so called "easy slam final". Who did Federer, Nadal and Novak win their first slams against? Mark P, someone I've never heard of and Tsonga. You'd fancy Murray to win all 3 of those matches. This year is a huge step; he never went on a downer after the AO and made another major final. Frankly, as long as he gets 1 major at the end of his career, he can look back on it with some satisfaction hopefully. He's close to it, if he gets in Federer's half at the USO I'd fancy him to win it.

The way the draws pan out I would guess his semi final opponent would be Djokovic.

The Special Juan wrote: He's close to it, if he gets in Federer's half at the USO I'd fancy him to win it.

Based on what? Federer has 5 USOs , Nadal has 1, Djokovic has 1. Why is Murray more likely to beat fed than the other two?

reckoner wrote:

The Special Juan wrote: He's close to it, if he gets in Federer's half at the USO I'd fancy him to win it.

Based on what? Federer has 5 USOs , Nadal has 1, Djokovic has 1. Why is Murray more likely to beat fed than the other two?

Gut feeling. He has the head to head record over Federer on hard courts (yeah yeah, not in Slams etc).

The Special Juan wrote:

reckoner wrote:

The Special Juan wrote: He's close to it, if he gets in Federer's half at the USO I'd fancy him to win it.

Based on what? Federer has 5 USOs , Nadal has 1, Djokovic has 1. Why is Murray more likely to beat fed than the other two?

Gut feeling. He has the head to head record over Federer on hard courts (yeah yeah, not in Slams etc).

But don't you think the head to head shows that Fed, despite finding Murray initially tricky to handle has kinda figured him out?

reckoner wrote:

The Special Juan wrote:

reckoner wrote:

The Special Juan wrote: He's close to it, if he gets in Federer's half at the USO I'd fancy him to win it.

Based on what? Federer has 5 USOs , Nadal has 1, Djokovic has 1. Why is Murray more likely to beat fed than the other two?

Gut feeling. He has the head to head record over Federer on hard courts (yeah yeah, not in Slams etc).

But don't you think the head to head shows that Fed, despite finding Murray initially tricky to handle has kinda figured him out?

Yes, he has lost the last few in a row. Four? Not just purely player v player that might swing it; also the fact I think Murray enjoys it as the USO: Hard courts appear to be his favoured surface, he won the Juniors title, he lives in America and the fact that the match is guaranteed to be outside... As I said, it's a gut feeling and I can't back it up in any way.

I reckon Murray's got a much better chance against Nadal. Consider that the USO is least suited to Nadal's game, Nadal has played him least often of the top 3 and has not been exposed to the improvements Murray has made.

I half agree with that. Murray beat him there in '08 but against Federer I think "Murray might have a chance here". Against Nadal I think "Oh here we go again". The last few slam meetings have resulted in Murray being whacked off the court with "that" forehand. Murray might have more belief against Nadal as he's beat him before at the USO and can do it again. It's a tricky one; regardless of who he plays he's not a favourite. Would Nadal be seeded 1 or 2 if he entered the competition ranked 3 in the world?

I think they just go with ranking at the USO - so he'd be seeded third.

The Special Juan wrote:Murray might have more belief against Nadal as he's beat him before at the USO and can do it again. (...) Would Nadal be seeded 1 or 2 if he entered the competition ranked 3 in the world?

If Nadal would be seeded #2 at the US Open (despite being ranked #3) and would again get Murray in his half, it would be very hard to keep ignoring the 'draw rigging' proof :-)