Murray is No 1 on Grass

Current Wimbledon Champion.
Best record of anyone at Wimbledon over the last two years (F,W).
Equal (with Djokovic) best record of anyone at Wimbledon over the last 3 years (SF,F,W).
Equal (with Djokovic) best record of anyone at Wimbledon over the last 4 years (SF,SF,F,W).
Current Olympic champion.
Current and 3-time Queens champion.
Only one of the top 4 to beat another top 4 player 3-0 on grass in a final; has done it twice.
Beat no 1 seed 3-0 at both Olympics (2012) and Wimbledon (2013).

Only slight issue here is that he hasn't faced Nadal recently, who has a 3-0 match record vs Murray at Wimbledon, 9-1 in sets. But Rafa hasn't played the new Murray and it's not Murray's fault Rafa hasn't reached the second week since the 2011 final when Rafa played much worse than Murray today. Incidentally, of the big four, Rafa has the worst record of any of them when you look at the last 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years or 5 years vs any of the other big 4.

I think right now Murray is the marginal favourite for next year's Wimbledon, would be the favourite if it started again in a couple of weeks, and would have a 50/50 chance or better to beat any player on grass. That said...2-0 down to Verdasco and just shows you about fine margins in sport, we could have been talking about Djokovic being the best. So this situation could change again next year. At the moment though, Murray is statistically the best on grass.

I also want to say just well done for this. In 2009, 2010 or 2011 he and his fans would have bitten anyone's hand off for a 2-slam, 1-Wimbledon career. He can be satisfied with his career now if he never wins another match. He has gone down in history, completed a story arc from grumpy loser to plucky loser to hero and legend. He'll always be a winner now, forever, and never a loser again.

I also want to give myself a pat on the back for correctly predicting Murray would win the tournament before it started. I thought last year's final and the Olympics win was a stepping stone to this and so it proved.

Other random factoids: The last 4 years the big four have won one Wimbledon each.
In total career it's Federer 7, Nadal 2, Dkokovic 1, Murray 1.

Henman Bill wrote:Other random factoids: The last 4 years the big four have won one Wimbledon each.
In total career it's Federer 7, Nadal 2, Dkokovic 1, Murray 1.

over the last 5 years they also have 1 US Open each (Del Potro taking the other). Of course, at the French and Australian things aren't quite so even...

What do we think to this:
Djokovic is #1 on hard, Murray is #2.
Murray is #1 on grass, Djokovic is #2.
Nadal is #1 on clay, Djokovic is #2.

For indoor, I would say Djokovic #1 Federer #2.

Also think Murray's win is better for the overall balance of his rivalry with Djokovic, as it makes it very even. Prior to today, Djokovic was 11-7 up overall and had won the last three.

Djokovic does have a question mark against him in that apart from his wonder year of 2011 he seems to only win Australian Opens in other years. That's something he needs to put right I feel. Sorry for the random splurge of thoughts.!

Well this year he is number 1 on grass, the result today specifically states that. Next year, we will see. Across the current era, not yet, Federer's rule is too recent.


But in my eyes, winning Wimbledon equates to being the best on grass at this moment. There is no other yardstick

@HB... 12 months is a long time at the top to predict the future. Look at the the difference between W 2012 and W 2013.

Oi!! HB you're not the only one who said Andy would win  
 
Good article though!!

Considering he's outside the Top 10 on clay and behind Novak on hard courts (tie-break is the Masters wins) then if he's not No.1 on grass - he'd have an even bigger problem

Murray is the moments #1 on grass. The last two Wimbledons show that.

Really for a guy with two Slams that's all we can say at the moment. It's a pretty big thing to say in my opinion.

banbrotam wrote:Oi!! HB you're not the only one who said Andy would win  
 
Good article though!!

Thankfully somebody remembered me  

Btw good article HB  

Murray's current grass-court winning streak is 18, and he is Wimbledon Champion; taking last year's Wimbledon into account he is 24-1 on Grass for his last 25 matches on the surface. He is currently #1 on grass for sure.

I agree that much can change in a year, but I think that the chances of next year on grass emulating this year are greater than they were 12 months ago.

On recent (last 2 years) form then yes, Andy has to be considered the best grass court player of the moment. The downside is though that the top players only get to play two grass court tournaments a (normal) year, one of which is a 250 (Halle or Queens) and the other a GS. It's rather out of balance compared with clay (1 GS, 3 MS and innumerable 500s and 250s throughout the year) and particularly with hard courts.

Surely even an organisation as stubborn as the ATP can see that there is a naeed for an extra week or two of the grass season to allow for an MS 1000 level event on grass in the Wimbledon build-up.

...at this moment yes. He had a great Wimb this year, aided by a kind draw to the final, but let's see more wins before anointing him grass king.

Nice article Henman Bill.

He's certainly got the results in the last 2 years - we don't know where his ranking will be at the end of June next year, but he'll have a pretty hefty uplift in the Wimbledon seeding formula compared to his rivals so hard to see him not being seeded 1 or 2 next year, which helps when assigning the favourites.

Murray's got the movement on grass sorted, but I do wonder if some of his success comes from being so poor on clay - he'll always be first onto the grass of the top players (not that such a factor could be counted at the Olympics of course).

Another interesting thing all the grass tournaments he has played in have been home tournaments. Maybe that helps.

dummy_half wrote:Surely even an organisation as stubborn as the ATP can see that there is a naeed for an extra week or two of the grass season to allow for an MS 1000 level event on grass in the Wimbledon build-up.

Well, from 2015 there will be one extra week between RG and Wimbledon with at least one tournament changing to grass to fit in that week. Not a Masters, but it's a start.

Could be that home tournaments are helped, but I think favourite surface is more important.

Pete Sampras won more Wimbledons than US Opens.
Andre Agassi won more Australians than US Opens.
Pat Rafter won US Open twice but struggled a bit at the Australian.

History shows little assist for a really top player by playing at home. Although it does seem to boost the performance of say a ~100 ranked player.

TBF Henman Bill, I think once crowds embraced the likes of Rafa and Roger as their own at RG and Wimbledon respectively (after a couple of wins there), it effectively became a home slam and has probably helped their game

I wouldn't say Rafa was embraced by the crowd at FO. They don't seem to mind him but they prefer Roger in my opinion.

Henman Bill wrote:I wouldn't say Rafa was embraced by the crowd at FO. They don't seem to mind him but they prefer Roger in my opinion.

He's moved into tolerated stage. I guess that had little option.......

As far as I can tell, not being jeered at the FO is effectively being welcomed into their family

I never understand why tennis fans jeer for play being stopped whilst putting their umbrella up.