Andy Murray - The Weight of Expectation

The wait was finally over and welcome relief not just to a certain Andy Murray, but also British tennis fans who have waited a long time since Perry for a British male slam winner.

Now for the hard bit.

Progression. Which way will his career go from here in terms of the Slams? Will he go the Agassi route which was 2 years till he reached Slam number 2 but without the heartbreak of losing a final or will he go his mentor's route and endure a couple of more Slam final defeats, but the wait for Slam success was just another 15 months? It is interesting. Some thought maybe overcoming the barrier of the nearly man tag in tennis that he has that Slam to his name. For me the pressure intensifys. It has only begun.

Question is where can Murray go? At 25 he is certainly at the peak of his career and however short this peak is, there is no doubt he has to maximise his potential. He has a few things in his favour.

- Aside from Federer, he is the only one who can compete with Djokovic.
- Age catching up with Federer.
- Uncertainty over Nadal and Hardcourts.

Unlike the farce of the Australian Open 2010 where he was made favourite by bookies, I feel if he were to go in as favourite at the Australian Open it would be a tad justified. The draw certainly needs to be more than favourable. A couple of easy round opponents. Victory in Brisbane will certainly have lifted his confidence and nothing is better preparation than a victory under your belt and for me must start joint second favourite for the title. Andy should he fall short at the Australian Open will begin to face some scrutiny. Questions will be much more difficult. Because the expectation for him now is make the finals and win. He has the tools and the opportunities. The one tag he won't want will be the 'One Slam Wonder'

I can't wait for the Australian Open to kick off.

For Andy, the Weight is here.

He's got the game, the consistency remains unproven.

Even last year, his great sequence from Wimbledon to USO was sandwiched between two periods where he underperformed.

He finished the year a massive 4,920 pts behind Djokovic. He's proved he can play at a similar level to Djokovic, so why was the gap so large? Djokovic was incredibly consistent, Murray was not.

It's very likely that Andy will win more slams. Whether he can get to number 1 is the big unknown.

HM Murdoch, consistency levels are the key and always have been an issue with Andy. His game holds up against the best of them but he has dips which cost him if he wants to nail the consistency. The dips come in a couple of forms. During matches (evident last weekend) his mind switches off or focus wanders (not sure which it is) and that allows opportunities for his opponents. Now in the past these dips often caused other parts of his game to fall apart and it resulted in him losing matches he should have won but now he is able to minimise the damage as the dips are far shorter-lived and he can place his way through these dips without too much damage. The other dips in form (normally coming around Spring-time post-Australian Open and end of season post-US Open) he needs to eradicate.

As for LK's points - I don't feel much has changed in tennis terms as it still remains mighty tough for him to win a slam. However, the mental baggage has been removed. In the past with the will he/won't he/ and last Brit to win a slam thing hanging over him I could often watch Andy at key times in slams and feel like I was watching him play in handcuffs but now he has broken free and he now knows he can win slams so his self-belief (once a weakness) will now be bolstered so I would be more surprised than not if he never won at least one more slam in his career.

I doubt he will reach number 1.

I think partly of the point difference is down to Clay.

Djokovic - 2,580
Murray - 720

Nearly a 2,000 point difference. If Andy is to catch Djokovic, for me Clay is where he needs to start improving.

I agree too that consistency is a massive part. Can Andy win tournaments and begin to defend titles too which is something that has proven difficult for him.

Mmm... Consistency. If Murray went out in the 2nd round of AO to Rosol how high would it measure on the richter scale?

This could be a new measure of consistency. The Rosol scale.

legendkillarV2 wrote:I doubt he will reach number 1.

I think partly of the point difference is down to Clay.

Djokovic - 2,580
Murray - 720

Nearly a 2,000 point difference. If Andy is to catch Djokovic, for me Clay is where he needs to start improving.

I agree too that consistency is a massive part. Can Andy win tournaments and begin to defend titles too which is something that has proven difficult for him.

Definitely, clay he needs to make strides on that surface. This is his least consistent surface but he has proved he can play on it as we saw a couple of years ago reaching finals and stretching Nadal and Djokovic so he just needs to reproduce that form and then who knows.

but hes never reached a clay final cc.
2011 was his best year on clay, sf monte carlo, sf rome, sf roland garros

Well I did say he needed to make strides on clay. However, as you point out with that record evidently he is not without hope or talent on the red stuff. It is his weakest surface but to reach semis at RG and elsewhere proves he is far above average on the surface but needs to be more consistent and complete.

Strangely his best clay court year, 2011, was one where he didn't have a recognised clay court specialist in his coaching team. He did have back issues in 2012 and it was his first season with Lendl. So it will be interesting to see if there is an improvement this year.

Screech
Federer
Murray
Del Po
No one else



emancipator

Great article LK.

Just read this quote from Lendl in the Telegraph online that made me chuckle. I can just imagine him saying it

"In a recent interview, Murray’s coach, Ivan Lendl, made a rare complaint about his charge’s gentle nature, suggesting that “I think Andy is too nice sometimes”, and complaining that he is too prone to play a clever lob off a short ball when “I wanted it buried, either in the corner or the guy’s nuts”.

Lendl's not wrong though, sometimes Murray gets caught up in a game of cat and mouse a bit too much: how often do you see him play the drop-shot lob combo when sometimes just putting away the next ball would be a better option? I'm not sure it's a question of "too nice" though, I think he does it for the psychological feeling the opponent gets of being toyed with.

On expectations, well Murray didn't play particularly well really in Brisbane (read, he played well enough to beat anyone outside the top 4), but the win will give him confidence, and he seemed to be striking the ball well, and volleyed nicely too (with the exception of that overhead miss in the final). I'm going to stick my neck out and back him to win the AO

His problem is the gap on clay is quite big. If you use Ferrer as the benchmark, an excellent clay court player probably his best surface, I would still expect Federer and Djokovic to beat him every time on clay, but Andy no way. I would put Del Po and Berdych a head of Murray on clay as well

Mad for Chelsea wrote:Lendl's not wrong though, sometimes Murray gets caught up in a game of cat and mouse a bit too much: how often do you see him play the drop-shot lob combo when sometimes just putting away the next ball would be a better option? I'm not sure it's a question of "too nice" though, I think he does it for the psychological feeling the opponent gets of being toyed with.

On expectations, well Murray didn't play particularly well really in Brisbane (read, he played well enough to beat anyone outside the top 4), but the win will give him confidence, and he seemed to be striking the ball well, and volleyed nicely too (with the exception of that overhead miss in the final). I'm going to stick my neck out and back him to win the AO

Agree about Murray sometimes just looking to toy with his opponents and show them that he can beat them in any number of ways - that's why I love watching him against the likes of Santoro, as he will take them on at their own touch game rather than just bludgen them off the court. Agree to an extent with Lendl though - there are times that just burying the ball into your opponents midriff is a better option. In the same way, I'd like to see Andy come in and serve-volley sometimes on his first serve - it's good enough to get a high return a lot of the time that would give him an easy put-away volley.

Agree that his volleying generally is very good, but he is not the most secure over head (unlike Nadal, who is excellent overhead but only competent with his other volleys). Winning last week is probably not all that significant (Andy won the same tournament last year and then lost the AO semi-final in a close match with Djoko), although winning is definitely better than losing...

Great article LK