How Far Can Murray Go?
Andy Murray won his first round match at Wimbledon today. Can he get to the quarterfinals?
Wimbledon is in full bloom and I see that our favorite player here at Tennis Diary, Benjamin Becker, took Nikolay Davydenko out in straight sets in the first round. With Becker’s huge serve, that’s a match he should win and we’ll all be pretty happy if he gets back to winning matches like that because his ranking should be in the top fifty. I feel bad because I’ve stopped following his career but he’s gotta give me some reason to follow it and I think he eventually will.
Meanwhile, I want to see if Andy Murray has what it takes to get to the quarterfinals this year which is what I’m expecting him to do. At first, I thought about answering the question: Can Murray win Wimbledon, but it’s pretty clear he can. He has a good record on fast surfaces and he has the single-minded competitiveness you need to win a slam. He also has the orneryness you need to deal with the U.K. media – in other words, he’s not too nice.
Okay, so what about the quarterfinals, his probably endpoint as his opponent in that round would be Rafael Nadal? Here are the variables:
Injures: I think Murray will always be dogged by injuries. He fell on his thumb, for heaven’s sake, at Queen’s, but it appears to be alright. If it doesn’t rain too hard, he should be able to get through five matches this year without splitting his pants and possibly straining something else, and next year there’ll be a roof over center court and since he’s Britain’s great hope, he can expect to play on that court much of the time. In fact, Fabrice Santoro played the first match in his 19 year career on center court at Wimbledon by dint of drawing Murray as his first round opponent.
Serve: Good enough. He popped a 136mph (219kph) in his match with Santoro. In didn’t go in but so what?
Aggression: Murray’s former coach, Brad Gilbert, thinks Murray should be more aggressive and that’s good enough for me. Here is the golf metaphor he used while watching Murray play Santoro:
He has the ability to be aggressive and he sometimes, under pressure, keeps that club in his bag.
Instead on aggression, Murray prefers the drop shot. He’d won the first two sets and was even at 4-4 in the second set when he got an open court to hit to. Instead of flattening the ball out and putting the ball away, he floated a short drop shot over the net. Murray won the point but it left a ball in play that should never have been in play. It’s also a stroke that might work against a 35 year old player at the end of his career - Santoro, but isn’t likely to scare someone like Nadal in the least.
In the next game, Murray had Santoro down 0-30, one point away from getting a match point, when he sent a wayward, high-floating drop shot beyond the sideline. You could hear a collective groan from the crowd that fairly cried out, “Andy, would you please just hit the damn ball!” Maybe this is why he doesn’t do it: at deuce, he had an open court down the line but he swung hard with the two-hander and hit nothing but net.
He repeated the pattern in the third set tiebreaker only worse. At 2-2 in the tiebreaker, he dipped down to one knee to hit a low drop shot that skipped off the top of the net and managed to land just a few inches inside the lines. It was an entirely stupid choice on a point that could have put him down a minibreak. On his second match point, he slammed a soft second serve from Santoro right into the net. I would need to see a whole more of those slammed shots make their way over the net and a larger percentage of those shots make up his repertoire before I’m willing to crown him with a Wimbledon title.
He did get aggressive in one area, however. He made 35 appearances at the net and converted 69% of those points which is a good set of numbers.
Temper: Santoro can drive the most sane tennis player crazy with his two-handed forehand slice and net approaches on return of serve, but Murray kept his cool.
The Draw: Richard Gasquet could be his fourth round opponent and he looked very sharp against Mardy Fish today. Murray is 0-2 against Gasquet on hard court and he’ll have a harder time coming to the net against him. At the moment, though, I’d say that Murray’s head is screwed on a lot tighter than Gasquet’s, so yeah, I think he can get to the quarterfinals. What do you think?
Here and There
Olga Savchuck was down 3-6, 0-5, to Jelena Jankovic when she took off to cover a forehand crosscourt and hit a running drop shot, no lie, and she didn’t even stop after she hit it. She never broke stride as she followed it up with a dash to the net to cover Jankovic’s response - which never came. Savchuck lost the set and the match but, wow, I’ve never seen that before.
Andy Roddick had no trouble getting past Eduardo Schwank in straight sets but I’m a bit unsettled about his chances of getting to the semifinals. He spent the Wimbledon run-up rehabbing a shoulder injury and when he talked about his shoulder after the match, he was noncommittal:
Shoulder feels all right. Yeah, I feel good. Yeah, I don’t know if it’s going to be perfect. But, you know, I did all right considering. You know, it pulled up all right. Yeah, I mean, probably as good as can be expected.
Jeez, make up your mind will ya? For my part, if I’m a gambler or – as I am – a fantasy tennis prognosticator, I want an MRI or at least an x-ray before I plunk my money down or pick him for my team. With a cranky shoulder and a less than perfect serve, he’ll have a harder time getting past his next opponent, Janko Tipsarevic. Remember Roger Federer’s muckup at the Australian Open that went to 10-8 in the fifth set? Federer may not have been feeling top level because he was suffering through a bout of mini-mononucleosis, but Tipsarevic refused to go away and a long match like that might be the end of Roddick.
Speaking of Benni Becker’s win over Davydenko: what was Davydenko thinking? He skipped the grass court tournaments to play on clay in Warsaw and he had fourth round Wimbledon points to defend. That means he’ll lose his number four ranking. By the way, in his post-match media session he was asked 17 questions and 11 of them were about match-fixing. It’s not like he’s the only player to have a suspicious betting pattern turn up in his match, you know?
The problem is that Betfair voided the bets on his match in Sopot, Poland, last year even though it had never voided all bets on a match before and it hasn’t done it since. Instead, if Betfair thinks a match is suspicious, it pays off the bettors and alerts the ATP to a possible problem. Meanwhile, the ATP has a list of matches with suspicious betting patterns and the names of players who’ve been involved in repeated suspicious matches thanks to Ben Gunn and Jeff Rees, the authors of the “Environmental Review of Integrity in Professional Tennis” which was released last month.
Davydenko’s match was definitely suspicious, but as long as the list of other suspicious matches is kept private, he’ll be the focus of all gambling questions and that’s rather unfair.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 at 9:26 pm and is filed under Brad Gilbert, Andy Murray, Jelena Jankovic, Benjamin Becker, Mardy Fish, Fabrice Santoro, Andy Roddick, Nikolay Davydenko, ATP Players, Wimbledon, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Richard Gasquet, ATP Tournaments.
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21 Responses to “How Far Can Murray Go?”
June 24th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Nina,
I thought Murray played so well today - really composed, with such variety, and more aggression than we’ve seen from him at times. He wasn’t letting Santoro run him around; he dictated most of the points. I like his chances to the Quarters, with the chance, however, of losing to Gasquet in the 4th. Gasquet looked great too today. It’s nice to see these two very talented players on their games.
Murray talked a lot about fitness in his post-match presser, so I think if he stays fit and trains well, he can cut down on predisposition to injury.
I am happy Davydenko will lose his 4th round ranking; he isn’t as good as so many others, albeit he is consistent. The top ten could use a little shifting / shaking up.
Roddick did seem hesitant, didn’t he, but he was serving well today nonetheless.
June 25th, 2008 at 6:10 am
Wow - Safin.
Very disappointing loss for Djokovic. I hope that Safin can follow it up.
June 25th, 2008 at 6:47 am
Are you back Marat?! Great stuff, calm, cool and collected.
Imo, Novak didn’t play well today because Marat didn’t allow it, he was the stronger mentally and was able to play his great game with confidence. Let’s hope he can keep it going.
June 25th, 2008 at 7:03 am
Jenny, I agree. But who’d've thunk we’d be saying Marat was “stronger mentally” - lol!
Novak will have to regroup for hardcourts as he has lots of points to defend. I’ve said this before though: I’ll be happy if he just maintains his #3 ranking this year. He -and others, the media - puts too much pressure on himself. He needs to just chill out and work on his fitness and serve.
June 25th, 2008 at 7:04 am
Jenny, are you a Murray fan, being a Brit?
June 25th, 2008 at 7:19 am
Patricia,
So much for Frankie. Oh well.
June 25th, 2008 at 7:31 am
Joel-la,
Frank out? - I’m sorry about that, must check the stats. lol, I might be patriotic to my country, but that doesn;t extend to Mr Murray.
June 25th, 2008 at 11:34 am
cool video!
rc
trading tennis blog
June 25th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
joel-la, yes, Safin a mental giant on court, now the pigs are really flying about today aren’t they? :0) Marat was just munching on those returns. The only “normal” match we saw - and I use the word very loosely - was Roger not letting his slip into a fourth set there, he was lucky to break back and keep the match to three sets.
Ivanovic looked pretty shaky too, she had a bit of luck going on. Dechy is a veteran but Ana simply has to brush by the lesser women in the early rounds, or else as I said to Nina last week I just don’t believe her time at Number one is going to be too long. And I still say there are three people here who can beat her in the final, if she gets that far. Either Williams sister or Maria, and even Jankovic looked rather in attacking mode yesterday, a change for her. She could be in the mix too.
I am happy in a way the path is clear now for Rafa and Roger, we should get them again in the final, that’s only fitting.
Frankie, no cigar. No Hollywood.
Did you folks in Europe get to see any more of Gonzo-Bolleli?
How about that soccer feed just breaking down there? That must have had everyone in a roil. The Turks had quite a run though.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Jenny, I see your Fernando got upset as well today?
Patricia,
Ivanovic did look shaky, but unlike Djoko she fought through, even if she did have help with a little luck. I thought Jankovic looked good in her match yesterday too.
Do you really think the field is clear for Rafa? I agree that Fed has a pretty easy path to the final now, but Rafa? He’s got Gulbis, Gasquet, Murray and Roddick all on HIS half! Yikes.
If Rafa comes through all that and *doesn’t* win the trophy, I’ll weep.
June 25th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Didn’t see the Gonzo match, Joel-la and Pat. Sounds like I’m glad I didn’t! There was Pat trying to subject me to a marathon 5 setter with Andreev/Ferrer, anyway David did it in 4.
Joel-la,
To be honest, I think Rafa has a few potential banana skins in his draw.
June 25th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Good for David to continue through on the grass.
I agree Jenny - some definite banana skins he’ll have to watch out for in order to negotiate the rest of the draw to the final.
June 25th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
call me an idiot, but i’d go with gasquet over murray. he’ll probably prove me wrong tomorrow (being gasquet) but he was looking so free and easy against fish out there. fish was never really in the match, and it’s one nearly everyone (including me) picked gasquet to lose…
by the way, for those who really care, i’ll be live-blogging the nadal-gulbis match tomorrow morning at 6:00 EST. i think it’s going to be a great match…
June 25th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
The way Richard is playing, and I saw glimpses last week, I go along with Nate.
Anyone calling the Rafa/Gulbis match? - I’ll stick my neck out and say Rafa.
June 25th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Who do you think will win Nate? Rafa 80-20%?
June 26th, 2008 at 2:08 am
Murray is a ‘very very good’ player, who’s game is perfectly suited to grass.
My only problems with him are:
Maturity (He often acts like a spoilt little brat and is prone to losing concentration).
Stamina (call it injury-prone or whatever but Murray doesn’t seem able to cope with the rigours of a big tournament.
Gasquet will be a big test, as he looked great in his match. If he wins that then he’s up against rafa who will slaughter him.
June 26th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Slaughter might be a strong word but otherwise, I’m right with you :0)
June 26th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
It’s true. Rafa is looking like he’ll plow through anyone who dares to cross his path. I’d like to see that Murray vs. Gasquet match first though. If Murray makes the Qs that’ll be a good enough result for him this year.
June 27th, 2008 at 2:16 am
Assuming they meet, I reckon Gasquet and Murray could be one of the matches of the tournie. Both have plenty to prove, look in great (for them) condition and can play some great shots.
Funny to see how lukewarm a lot of the home crowd are about Murray considering he’s basically the only guy we’ve got who knows what end of the racket to hold. Sure, he’s been an immature brat at times, and he’s been slow in bulking up, but let’s cut him some slack. I watched the second round match between the new British sensation Chris Eaton and what a difference. The crowd were going wild. Unfortunately a big serve and absolutely nothing else tends not to get you too far at Wimbledon. Tursonov could have beat him if he had been using Tiger Wood’s knees. Still at least he’s English and good-looking. That’s what counts!
June 27th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Woody, do you think the U.K. is a bit worn out by the Murray saga already? The LTA gives him Gilbert for $1 million a year (give or take) and he turns it down. He’s not the sunniest guy out there and he’s not that good looking and he’s Scottish to boot. I sense a bit of sarcasm about the English in that last sentence :0) Spectators can be brutally honest and partisan when they sit in the stands.
Murray is a guy we’re all gonna have to warm too because he’s got the long term competitiveness you need. Not like Tiger - though he’s got enough injuries to compete with Tiger - but as competitive as any but the top three. That could be more than enough to take him past Gasquet.
June 27th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Murray said that he’s looking to get to the Q’s and that’s probably a good attitude. He’s got enough pressure on his without making more and he’s still going through the ups and downs of physically adjusting to the tour let alone the mental stuff.
I’m actually less worried about his meltdowns and attitude - that will come with maturity - he wants to win so badly he’ll find a way. I’m more concerned about his injuries. Can he physically stand up to the grind long enough to win two or three slams - a very doable number for him?
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