The Grand Slam Marker

Every Slam champion does it.

They go into a Slam and sometime in the draw they produce that performance. The one that says yep I am a contender. Sharapova and Williams have done it in the womens side. Federer and Djokovic in the mens side. Which brings me to Murray. Annoying git. I watched the Simon match and it was one Murray should've laid down his marker. A weary opponent. You can afford to be aggressive because your B game is not what Simon wants to entertain. If we go back to the US Open, Murray had his struggles. Cilic and Lopez could've dispatched him. For me though Murray was impressive against Bogolomov Jr. His marker though was against big hitting young gun Milos Raonic. Murray played the perfect match and laid his marker down as a contender for the title. He went on to win it, yes the final wasn't spectacular but he won it not really playing his best tennis. However in the earlier rounds he seemed to exert all his attacking prowless.

Roll on Australian Open 2013 and Murray was looked a bit drab. Haase, Sousa, Berankis, Simon. Murray hasn't really looked like he has got his rythym going. Too many lacklustre service games, he plays the FH up the line with the look of dread in his body movement. His FH and serve are way down in pace and it is alarming. He is fortunate that the draw opened up for him because his best tennis hasn't been required to win in straight sets. Chardy awaits him and it does concern me he can stroll through that match. Where it does concern me is that a red hot Federer is lurking and looking very sharp. Murray's current performances will see him easily dispatched by Federer or even Tsonga for that matter. What Murray needs to do against Chardy is find his best tennis and lay down a marker. Federer looks confident as does Djokovic. Murray has seemed a bit lazy in his follow through on the BH and he looks really un-prepared.

I really hope Andy can bring it together and bring that big chip to the table. Right now he doesn't look like a chip leader in the making.

Maybe he's a bit bored?

Could be. Maybe he is waiting for the Olympics

My guess is he will be all right. He has been doing what he needed to do - dispatching opposition with little fuss. I see no reason for worry. Of course, that does not mean that he will beat Federer or Nole (if both he and they make it that far), since even an in form Andy is no guarantee of victory against those two.

It has been no A-stuff from Andy. I hope Fed can spank him in the semis as retaliation for the Olympics.

The spanking days are over, I strongly suspect

And he hasn't got past JWT yet .......

Federer and Murray should get past Tsonga and Chardy, respectively without too much fuss.

I actually thought he laid down a decent marker in R1 against Haase: he was aggressive, stuck to the baseline throughout and forced Haase way behind his own baseline, I was really impressed. Since then he's been a little patchy but has done more than enough to get the job done each time, not dropping a set yet. Thinking back to the US Open he needed to lay down that marker against Raonic as a) he'd played poorly in the previous match and b) Raonic was considered a real danger man. I haven't felt so far in this tournament he's needed to do that (as opposed to Federer who's faced a couple of trickier opponents already). The question of course is whether Murray can up his level when he needs to: I think he will.

Someone said on another thread that as fans we tend to get too concerned by little things: for instance the Fed fans got really worked up about the draw when in reality it was tricky rather than an absolute beast. Murray fans are concerned that he hasn't shown his A game yet, but how much is that because he hasn't needed to?