Andy Murray - The World No 1

First topic message reminder :

With Milos Raonic pulling out injured of his semi against Andy in Paris it means Andy Murray has scaled the heights to reach the World No.1 ranking.

Andy has been at No 2 for so long and at last he is at the very top. All that hard graft, the hours of training, the years of toiling and competing, the big wins and hard losses but final Andy's moment has arrived.

His fellow pros are lining up to hail the new world No 1 after Djokovic. Great times Andy. Well done.

BS and CC

Of course, if Andy does well in the slams (say 2 in 2017 and 1 in 2018), he'll stay at or pretty close to #1 for a while.

I kind of agree though that there is no necessity for Andy to focus on the ranking - it's pretty likely that he will hold the #1 until at least June 2017 (bar a total collapse) and so he will move past all the guys who were transient #1s and Wilander, to be a bit behind Nastase and Kuerten (40 and 43 weeks at #1 respectively). As such he's certainly be remembered as a solid world #1. However, he will be 30 in May and will pass Lydian's 850 matches some time around the middle of the season (at 804 currently), so you wouldn't expect huge longevity at the top.

There is a window of opportunity for Andy now to take a few slams - Federer's got old, Nadal seems to be struggling to regain top form and now question marks over Djokovic's form and motivation (and of course Novak being no younger than Andy and has played 100 more matches on the tour), while the next generation players haven't shown themselves particularly capable of taking over at the top. Some promising youngsters, but are Pouille and Kyrgios going to make the jump to the very top in the next year? Probably too soon for Zverev, while Khanchov and Fritz have a lot of development to do.

Realistic / optimistic goals for the rest of Andy's career:
Career grand slam - it would be borderline criminal if he doesn't win the AO once in his career, while form over the last couple of years suggests RG is possible if not probable.

6 or 7 slams overall - He'd likely need to win at least 2 next year to achieve this, which at this stage looks feasible (but then 6 months ago you wouldn't have predicted Djoko apparently dropping off like he has).

Complete the set of MS 1000 events - currently missing Indian Wells (where his record is surprisingly poor) and Monte Carlo

To be honest, there's not much else that he needs to achieve that would improve his legacy - has already ticked off the Davis Cup , #1 ranking, Olympics, Wimbledon, USO (although winning another would be good), WTF and a hatful of MS1000 titles. With his age and mileage, he doesn't have the time to become one of the real all time greats, but could possibly have the scope to get into the group below this along with the likes of Edberg and Becker

As if a mental midget like Murray could win multiple majors in 2017. Let's not forget he only lucked out in 2016 when the big 3 faded.

Jermaine2015 wrote:As if a mental midget like Murray could win multiple majors in 2017. Let's not forget he only lucked out in 2016 when the big 3 faded.

Is this all you have?

I would hope you would put some effort into it and come up with more than luck and mental midget

You might even want to research his slams, as most came before 2016, where the other 3 had not 'faded'

Report card..... D -

has the ability to do a lot better, but fails to take the time to consider the facts, or how to best structure a coherent argument

Murray such a bottle job he's never beaten two top 5 players to win a major. Del Porto has. Djokovic has. Wawrinka has.

Jermaine2015 wrote:Murray such a bottle job he's never beaten two top 5 players to win a major. Del Porto has. Djokovic has. Wawrinka has.

So that is your only criteria - how to cherry pick facts to suit your agenda - maybe you should go into politics, now is the time for that sort of argument lol

Come on everyone, stop feeding the troll.

My thoughts are 1 slam would be a satifisfactory result for Murray in 2017, and 2 slams would be a superb result. Slightly depends on which ones, if I was him I would prefer to win the ones I hadn't won already.

@HB I agree, 0 slams would be a let down, but 2 would be outstanding given he's got 3 so far in his entire career.  He's got to give the Aus Open a real go and if (hopefully) he got that, surely we'd see an unusually relaxed Murray able to focus on the big goals for the rest of the season and let the ranking take care of itself.

It's probably an unattainable goal, but I'd like to see him finish his career with a slam final record getting closer to 50% than the current lop-sided 3-8 record.

Totally agree. 

No slam wins next year would be a disappointment as things stand just now. One would be par for Andy but on the form he has shown of late he should be aiming higher.

If Andy does not win many/any slams in 2017, you have to ask, who will ? Certainly most would expect Djoko to be among the GS title holders. I refuse to learn the lessons from RG in 2015 and 2016, in that I still think Rafa has a chance of another French win.
But apart from Djoko and Nadal next year, who else? Raonic, if he stays fit, is probably the best bet. Stan the Man appears capable of one great Slam a year these days, so cannot be discounted. Cilic, may be. Difficult to look beyond these.

Delpo?

BLB - Yes, I should certainly have mentioned Delpo. He will have been very pleased with his 2016 performances and providing he can stay fit he's sure to climb the rankings even further.
Given the way he played against Andy M in the Olympics and DC, he looks to be capable of lasting through long matches.

Only way Murray can fluke another major is if the Big 3 fail to regain their form/health. Murray lucked out at Wimbledon when all three of the superstars wilted.

Jermaine2015 wrote:Only way Murray can fluke another major is if the Big 3 fail to regain their form/health. Murray lucked out at Wimbledon when all three of the superstars wilted.

Did the likee of Sampras, Agassi and Courier "luck out", given that the Big 3's "form / health" wasnt quite there in the 90's?

Clearly, tennis never existed before they came along 

Now into the third month of 2017 and Andy Murray remains the World No 1. He now leads Djokovic by just over 2,100 points so another 8 weeks (at least) at No 1 look guaranteed. When the rankings come out tomorrow it will be his 18th consecutive week at No 1 and he will soon surpass Mats Wilander who spent a total of 20 weeks at No 1 taking Muzza into 15th spot for most weeks at No 1 in the open era.

Just seen the stat that in the last 10 months Murray has won more ATP titles than Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Wawrinka, Raonic and Nishikori combined. Not too shabby.

Nice from a British point of view to wake up on a Monday morning and see Murray more than 2,000pts ahead at the top - with power to add over the coming weeks!
You feel that IW and Miami are vital for Djoko, with 2,000pts to defend. Good chance for Fed - with nothing to defend - to push further up the top 10.

How many weeks did Djokovic have at world number one and how does his total compare to Nadal? anybody have that figure to hand?

Djokovic (to date) has spent 223 weeks at No 1 compared to 141 weeks (to date) at No 1 for Rafa Nadal.

Thank CC................wow I hadn't realised that Djokovic was as long at number one as that. I thought he was closer to 200 weeks. Really interesting that he has been nearly twice as long at number one as Nadal. I know that Nadal has had his injuries and a certain Roger Federer was very dominant but I would have thought that Nadal and Djokovic totals would have been much closer

Hat's off to Murray too, will be interesting to see how many weeks he can rack up by the end of his career. Safe to say he will be sitting there for a while now !

slashermcguirk wrote:Hat's off to Murray too, will be interesting to see how many weeks he can rack up by the end of his career. Safe to say he will be sitting there for a while now !

Well it is 18 weeks now and I'd be very surprised if he isn't still there at the end of the clay court season (late May) so by that time he'd be up to around 30 weeks leaving him 10 weeks short of Ilie Nastase who spent 40 weeks at No 1. Players he has already surpassed include Mats Wilander, Andy Roddick, Boris Becker and John Newcombe.

Djoko has 223 weeks as no.1, not 243 weeks.

Actually the Djoko figure is 223 weeks, which is still very impressive. I thought after his blistering start to 2016 that Djoko was on course to beat Fed's overall of 302 weeks at the top and even surpass Rog's record of 237 successive weeks at numero uno.
  Obviously the successive-weeks record has now gone, but the 302 is still on, although will be far more difficult now.
  I dare say that some might consider Rafa's figure of 141 is quite low. He first got to number one in 2008 and I reckoned he would outdo Rog's achievements.

BLB: I see you beat me to it with the correct Djoko figure!

Belovedluckyboy wrote:Djoko has 223 weeks as no.1, not 243 weeks.

Sorry a typo on my behalf. I shall correct it in original post.

sirfredperry wrote:Actually the Djoko figure is 223 weeks, which is still very impressive. I thought after his blistering start to 2016 that Djoko was on course to beat Fed's overall of 302 weeks at the top and even surpass Rog's record of 237 successive weeks at numero uno.
  Obviously the successive-weeks record has now gone, but the 302 is still on, although will be far more difficult now.
  I dare say that some might consider Rafa's figure of 141 is quite low. He first got to number one in 2008 and I reckoned he would outdo Rog's achievements.

BLB: I see you beat me to it with the correct Djoko figure!

Worth considering what Novak would have to do to get to 302 - basically 80 weeks more at #1. Pretty safe to say that he's not closing the gap on Andy until at the very earliest RG, and more realistically Wimbledon or the US summer hardcourt season. To get the 302 weeks that would require Novak to hold the #1 ranking from say this year's USO through all of the subsequent year and to about RG2019. I don't see it as realistic for a 30 to 32 year old Novak to do this.

Second point re Rafa's time at number 1 - I recall some discussions about how he had never won a title off clay while ranked #1. I think he did break that streak in the end, but it did lend some credence to the suggestion that he was more motivated chasing the top spot than in defending it. Also, the injury thing is important, as getting to the top took more out of Rafa physically than it did Roger (or, amazingly given his style of play, Djokovic), so by the time he'd accrued the points to get to the top an injury lay-off was likely to be round the corner.

D-half. Interesting thoughts from you on Rafa. A good few would agree that he was always happier being the hunter in the number two position than the hunted at number one.
I must say I never thought Murray would get to number one and it certainly seemed nigh impossible in early June 2016, such was Djoko's lead at the top. You get the impression that Andy quite enjoys being at the top of the pile. He's a keen student of the game and no doubt has noticed the illustrious names he's already outlasted as number one.

Fed and Djoko are better on the HCs and rely more on winning on HCs to get to no.1; Rafa relies more on clay and that's why Rafa plays more clay events than anyone else during the clay season. He plays a very compressed clay season, playing five events in eight weeks and winning four out of five and reaching the final in the other during his heydays, so that may explain why Rafa was usually exhausted by second half of season or worse still, got injured. In those years he got to no.1, ie 2008, 2010, 2013, not only was he great on clay but had to win on grass/HCs too, that may explain why it took more out of Rafa than of Fed or Djoko, to get to no.one and retaining it.