Andy Murray Has His Own Pride Celebration
The United Kingdom had been waiting for the match between Andy Murray and Richard Gasquet at Wimbledon and when it arrived, it was better than anyone expected.
I only managed to pick three of the eight quarterfinalists at Wimbledon but who knew that Marat Safin would be here for the second week of Wimbledon and Novak Djokovic would not.
I did get two picks correctly, I’m proud to say: Marin Cilic beat Paul-Henri Mathieu in the third round and Andy Murray rallied from two sets down to beat Richard Gasquet in the fourth round, and that’s where we’ll spend all our time today because, so far, it comes closest to matching the sports hysteria we saw in Euro Cup 2008. The people of the United Kingdom are a happy bunch tonight and rightly so.
After Murray saved the first break point of the match at 3-4 in the first set, Gasquet hit one of his wondrous backhands down the line and out of reach. That backhand is a pain in the butt. Gasquet wraps the racket around his head in the backswing without telegraphing the direction of the shot. That same motion can also turn into a drop shot and he has no trouble whatsoever picking up slices and other low lying grass court balls and turning them into winners.
Murray saved the game with two drop shots – no surprise there – but it’s Gasquet who’s applying all the pressure and it’s hard to see how drop shots will stand up to hard flat winners on grass.
With Murray serving to stay in the set at 5-6, he hit a few errors and a double fault to give Gasquet two set points. He saved the first one and on the second, Gasquet hit another backhand down the line followed up by a drop shot. It took forever but Murray got there and put the ball away then launched into his own version of Llleyton Hewitt’s fist pumping lawn mower celebration. On his third set point, Gasquet got to the net again – see a pattern here? – and hit a volley that sent Murray scampering one way then the other and ended with Murray hitting a running backhand passing shot that sent Gasquet into a futile dive. Murray celebrated with his home crowd while Gasquet lay sprawled on the court.
Gasquet finally cashed in on his fourth set point as Murray sent a drop volley wide but you can see the huge and obvious difference between these two young and talented players: Murray relishes the opportunity to get his home town fired up while Gasquet would rather toil under more low-key conditions. And Murray has the greater pressure by far. Gasquet has all kinds of French tennis players to share his tennis wunderkind burden with and Murray has only 242nd ranked Alex Bogdanovic.
Gasquet got another break point on Murray’s first service game in the second set when Murray fooled around with a cute approach shot that went into the net. Gasquet got the break to go up 2-0 and held onto the break to take a two sets to none lead. Serving at 2-2 in the third set, Murray faced another break point and saved it with an ace. He fought off two more break points with serve and volley tennis - a much better strategical response than those cutesy drop shots. If Murray wasn’t going to hit a few hammer backhands down the line himself, at least he could get to the net.
Murray won that game and the United Kingdom let out a huge sigh of relief but the Kingdom was still a bit worried about their boy. Could he actually play aggressively when he really needed to? Not quite. He held his serve in fits and starts and fought off more break points until he finally gave out to go down another break at 4-5 in a game which he started off with another cute shot into the net.
Gasquet now served for the match and Murray finally hit a few solid ground strokes and broke Gasquet for the first time. I’m tempted to say that Murray had hung around just long enough for Gasquet to start making errors. After hitting only three errors in each of the first two sets, Gasquet hit nine in the third and one of them was a double fault on that break point. But it wasn’t quite like that. Murray fought off more break points to hold in the next game and Murray’s resolve seemed to deflate Gasquet.
Gasuet hit two errors in succession to go down 0-3 in the third set tiebreaker. He fought back but then came the coup de grace and it was one of the best shots I’ve ever seen. On his first set point, Murray hit a short return that pulled Gasquet to the net. Murray followed that up with a short response and Gasquet hit a volley at such a sharp angle that Murray ended up teetering on the edge of the stands by the time the point was over. Before he got there, though, he flicked a backhand that went well behind Gasquet and ended up almost in the middle of the court.
I can’t remember anyone so visibly and expressively lift himself and everyone else in a stadium as Murray did in those last few games. If we end up looking at a very successful career when he retires, the image of his upturned howling head and the tangible desire after every saved break point will end up characterizing him as a player. And the comparison is compelling because here is Gasquet, who is just recovering from a bout of “why am I out here?” giving away a two set lead to someone who would never think to ask such a question.
Murray kept rolling. He broke Gasquet to go up 2-1 in the fourth set and actually started scorching a few ground strokes. He broke Gasquet one more time to win the set 6-2 but Gasquet didn’t go away. He fought off four break points before giving up a break in the first game of the fifth set and he fought off four more break points in the set. But he couldn’t break back and Murray had come through. This was the feature match as far as his home crowd was concerned and Murray not only got there but he played the match of his life to win it.
After Murray won the last point of the match, he lifted his sleeve and showed off his noticeable right bicep just to remind everyone that his strength and conditioning are just fine, thank you very much. Gasquet complained about the crowd noise and the dying light in the fifth set in what was a show of frustration more than anything, but his recovery is going well and I’d like to think that he’ll mature into his prodigious talent just as Murray seems to be figuring out how to play this game. If so, then we’ve just seen a preview of a rivalry waiting for us when the current Wimbledon rivalry has passed.
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18 Responses to “Andy Murray Has His Own Pride Celebration”
July 1st, 2008 at 4:17 am
I was able to see the match until the tie-break, and was sorry when I learned that Gasquet had lost - I am french, so it’s understandable.
From what I saw (not much) of Gasquet’s 2008 Wimbledon, I thought it was not too bad, comparing to his debute this year.
Too bad he can’t be a little more aggresif on court, but I think that, like a lot of French players, he will get more mature in the years to come.
I’m also glad that after his loss after a 2 love lead, the Frech press didn’t atomize him (yet) like they use too.
Anyway, Murray’s win is logic if he played better during the tie-break and the two last sets - or because Gasquet can’t keep up mentally and physically a five setter.
We’ll see how he’ll manage against Nadal.
I hope Clément will get through the next round! lol
July 1st, 2008 at 6:23 am
I was sorry too Marianne, and I’m a Brit. I love Richard’s game, if only he could have hung on. Andy has talent for sure, it was a good victory, but he’ll never have Richard’s very beautiful and deadly single backhand. I hope Richard isn’t too affected by this loss, he was doing so well. Btw, any idea what Fabrice will do tennis-wise when he retires?
July 1st, 2008 at 8:10 am
Nice coverage, Nina, what little bit they offered us here looked compelling. It is good to see these two young lions engaging each other so well, because this should be one of the best rivalries in the next decade. I think Murray has a chance as I said earlier, provided he serves like gangbusters and returns really well. And I hope the crowd gets into it the way they do in latin countries when Davis Cup is on.
July 1st, 2008 at 8:19 am
Great stuff, Nina. Murray’s first serve was nowhere to be seen for the first two sets, so the fact that he only lost both sets by one break against a rampant Gasquet suggested he would have a chance if he upped his game by a fraction.
I’ve no idea what the Nadal score will be, although a blowout wouldn’t be a huge surprise.
Interesting if slightly disappointing to hear English voices shouting out so strongly for the fragile Frenchman. Apparently 80 years of hurt are still not enough to get some folk behind my truculent fellow Scot.
July 1st, 2008 at 11:20 am
Woody, I think Gasquet invites sympathy because of that fragility you point out. You kind of want to go out there and help him as his two set lead slips away. You can feel his discomfort as he looks down at the ground while Andy is bellowing away. I guess there are shy beings in the animal world too because Andy certainly played the lion.
Marianne, I am on Richard’s side because I love watching a complex person mature into themselves. You never know when, or if, it will happen but seeing Gasquet last year and this year makes me appreciate him that much more. This is a guy who’s going to feel his way to greatness and when he gets there, we’ll wonder how he did it just as people who called Federer “crazy”, including his own coach, are trying to figure out how he did it.
I now need a rest just as much as Andy does and I’m trying to get excited about the women but the Williams sisters look to have it sowed up. I feel for Jelena, she deserves her few weeks at number one even if that’s all it turns out to be. I could almost see her turn tail and go onto something else as soon as she gets there so she can have go off and have fun somewhere else. If there had been this many upsets at Rolan Garros, Jelena would have had her number 1.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Too bad some of those Brits cheering yesterday for Gasquet couldn’t have stuck around for today’s match with Zheng and Vaidisova. The applause for Zheng was quite tepid after she had just beaten Vaidisova, a little less so later when she left the court. Shame on them! This little squeak of a woman has been utterly the most impressive player of this two weeks so far, don’t the fans there realize what an amazing achievement this is for Zheng? I can’t believe I am saying this, since lately I have been bad mouthing the Chinese every which way for their political stances especially on Tibet and Darfu, and frankly I hope their really big show in Beijing goes straight to hell in a handbasket. But Zheng is absolutely great, what a run, beating all the big babes. Don’t know if she has a chance against Serena, but I almost think I want to see her beat Serena, yeah, beat her good, deprive me of a Serena-Venus final, that’s ok, because Zheng really deserves to be there. So calm and contained. I am utterly blown away by her. Go you little squeak, only 5′4″. And a half, says Johnny Mc. He’ll give her the half he says.
July 1st, 2008 at 5:23 pm
That’s a shame Pat. I agree, Zheng totally deserves to be there. I’m sure it wasn’t just Brits cheering for Gasquet, he would have had the French contingent there, plus neutrals and others who got a lottery ticket on to Centre. Don’t forget there would be a lot of Australian and Swiss fans rooting for Hewitt and Fed, and I would imagine the Aussies would then support Murray, the Swiss maybe Gasquet. Actually most of the cheering was for Murray. When Gasquet faulted they cheered, when he took a toilet break they booed.
July 1st, 2008 at 5:45 pm
How many Chinese are there in the U.K. relative to, say, other countries in Europe and the U.S.? In results that are probably a few years old, the U.S. is 7th with 2 million Chinese, France is 11th with 300,000, and the U.K. is 13th with 250,000.
Of course, I don’t know how that works - what about the generations of Chinese who live on the west coast of the U.S. and Canada? How are they counted? Anyway, there’s not anywhere near the presence in Europe as in the U.S. or Asian countries such as Indonesia and there haven’t been a lot of successful Chinese players yet so that could account for the tepid response.
Having said that, London gets the next Olympics so they should be more tuned into China and what about the entire Olympics push by China? No doubt Zheng’s result is part and parcel of a countrywide push for athletic excellence.
I don’t like the way China develops its athletes - they sequester children from one child families in sports institutes from an early age - but it is having results and people should be familiar with that.
July 1st, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Given the size of the UK, that’s a fair number, although one would have to ask would the majority of them be interested enough to go to a tennis match, queue or camp out for days, I’m not so sure. Again I’m not sure how many tickets are issued to the queue for the 2 show courts these days, it used to be the first 500 for each court, these die hards come with their tents and sleeping bags. Debentures or the silly price seats account for quite a few too. If you get lottery, you don’t know where you will end up. There is Henman Hill who watch on the big screens.
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:36 am
I can’t get over Gasquet’s lose….sniff! It is nice to read Nina and Pat and still believe and have some hope for him, he plays with such aggressiveness and beauty. Something that impressed my children very much was the sound of ball when he hits it, a powerful intimidating bomb that he throws to his opponent out of nowhere because Murray by the way wasn’t giving him any pace.
My son and daughter had spent all night at Wimbledon Sunday night for the prize of watching some of the great matches to be seen Monday accompanied by perfect weather conditions. They got lucky and after a sleepless night cold on the grass camp out and an endless queue that they suffered totally unprepared and with absolute unconsciousness, two lost Mexicans without even a sleeping bag, freezing and damp saw the sun and the light since at 4PM and waited until 9 to see if they were lucky enough and had the chance of their lives.
Yes Jenny, 500 tickets for Central Court and 500 for Court One about 60 pounds and a long night of sacred wait and religious peregrination full of trials and tribulations is the prize you pay to get in.
Their place on the queue was 580 and it got tickets for Court 1, Vadisova and then Nadal and Safin, not so bad but they wanted to seer Roger and our beloved Gasquet against Murray that match promised a lot of emotions and wonderful tennis.
They got even luckier because while waiting on a queue for water a lady was telling them that her lottery tickets were for Central Court and her son was dying to see Nadal play so they switched places and had the real lottery themselves.!!!
So many matches of high quality and excitement that wonderful day, I was watching Mario and Fernando and as with Gasquet…it is this thing of letting go before the work is finished like taking your foot from the accelerator when you haven’t got where your going…. I could feel it in their energy and it happened. I call my daughter when Gasquet was with 2 sets and a break on the third and told her…Gasquet is gonna loose. She told me I was crazy he was playing at his best, but he couldn’t convert 16 breaking points and you knew that was not a good omen…. he served for the match and has many chances and match points and he just wasn’t aggressive enough in those moments… that Nadal’s unique sense of when to push is not present on Richard’s game yet…
then it is all history… my children say the crowd won that game, their support lifted Andy and buried Richard….full of drama ..Gasquet just did it again!!!!!!
I was able to watch Marcos and Feli..wow!!! another very even close and competitive match and the way Feli finally won was unbelievable, as was Safin’s tennis destroying Stans and Mario taking the chance Fernando gave him.
Safin and Feli two delicatessens we should enjoy today and my heart is divided I would rejoice in the victory of any of them and it is an unpredictable toss indeed. Jenny, Marcos made him practice that backhand Costa has helped him to perfect and I guess he really has improved, it was really tested one time and again and though is not his best shot he can last a little longer with it.
As for Zheng, my admiration and respect, she understand that you have to work and construct every point and it is not about hitting winners and depending on them and make look like a bet that can go either way. She doesn’t choke!!! Pity she lacks the strength and size to beat Venus but… this Wimbledon has been full of surprises, starting with the unbelievable fine weather and blue sky.
July 2nd, 2008 at 5:09 am
Sorry, Zheng gets Serena not Venus… if she can move her a lot and make her run do you think it possible to watch another surprising upset?…maybe, then again, maybe not!
I just loves Bono’s “Joy of choking”, interesting way to get through that experience…what are Elena’s chances against Venus? She can answer Venus powerful serve for sure and in long rallies..?!? ….
is rain better for Andy? Nadal won’t like it and then his knee…
July 2nd, 2008 at 6:08 am
Hi Maria,
Great comment, lovely read. Sounded as if you had a wonderful time. Is it £60 now, goodness, that was after the damp grass. It used to be a pavement camp, but I believe it’s been moved to the park, am I right? You got good weather too! Today urrgh, rain!
Delicatessens - that’s a good one!
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:41 am
Jenny:
There’s no doubt Murray eventually got huge support but there was definitely some real hardcore Gasquet fans with English accents. When I heard one of them screaming “Gasquet for England!” at 5-4 in the third I was ready explode. Ther’e no doubt Andy has been a real jerk at times, but he’s cleaned up his act big time. Imagine how it would have went down in England if at the height of Henmania there was a Scottish voice screaming for his opponent to do it for Scotland.
Anyway a real shame to lose Gasquet - he’s beyond mercurial, there’s something almost Shakespearian about him.
Hard to get excited about the Williams sisters - they look as though they’ve got a spade in their hands when something subtle is attempted.
July 2nd, 2008 at 8:47 am
Interesting comments Woody. I’m not sure why I’m not excited about Venus and Serena because they are clearly two of the most interesting people on the pro tennis tour and they handle themselves with graciousness on the court. They were both relegated to faraway courts yesterday and that was exceptionally unfair because Venus is the defending champion. Instead of being unpleasant, she decided to avoid commenting on the subject and that took some restraint because clearly she was hurt.
I think it’s partly pretention - particularly in the case of Serena. Nobody can beat her when she’s in her vicious mode on court but I find myself turned off by the coy headshots and runway vamping. I think it might go back to her father’s promotion of the sisters from early on. It’s become a huge part of the sport. Football players and basketball players create personas to increase their market value. Take Gilbert Arenas of the NBA Washington Wizards. He has his own blog, shouts out “hibachi” when he makes a shot, and calls himself agent zero. That’s also what Dennis Rodman was doing - making a marketable persona for himself. “The Rock” has parlayed it into a film career and he’s now costarring in the movie Get Smart.
Obviously sports is entertainment and World Wide Wrestling is little but entertainment, but I don’t want to be reminded of that too much because I want to know that the best player won, not the best entertainer.
It’s not a simple subject. I’m currently reading “Moneyball” by Michael Lewis and it does an excellent job of showing that most baseball teams overpay for the home run hitting monsters when it’s the unsexy guys who get on base that contribute more to the final score. It would be the same as analyzing soccer and deciding that Renaldo was much less valuable than the setup guy on the team.
The point is that glamor sells in sports even when it has no relation to winning. Tennis is less susceptible because it’s a one on one sport - there are no seasonal contracts or seven year contracts. But there are plenty of appearance fees and you can bet that Serena and Venus will get them even after their rankings drop.
I want to keep the pretense that it’s all about the sport even though it’s not. I like my illusions. They get me through the day :0)
July 2nd, 2008 at 8:51 am
Hi Woody,
You’re right, I understand your annoyance, I would have been ready to explode too! Unfortunately, Andy has acquired this ’support anyone but Andy’ tag because of those football remarks he made a couple of years ago when he was a teen. Not being a footie fan myself, I’ve always felt it was carried way over the top by some ‘fans’ in the UK who are never going to let him forget it . That remark makes me wonder if they’re Gasquet fans either. I agree, Andy has cleaned up his act, and I do think he has a huge talent.
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Wow, Maria, that was some story and you know, I noticed the same thing about Gasquet when he hits the ball. It’s like a small handgun goes off in comparison to other players. He just slaps the ball while other players seem to caress it. Gonzalez comes close to the same sound but he’s all effort. That’s another reason I’m waiting with baited breath for Gasquet to just get better and better. I’m waiting for him to hit a ball so hard one day that it’ll break in midair because, even though he can whack the ball, he’ ahd so many other part to his game that I might just get 3/4 of the way to the tennis heaven I’ve experienced at time with Federer and that will be worth it.
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Woody, you say :Hard to get excited about the Williams sisters - they look as though they’ve got a spade in their hands when something subtle is attempted.” lol
Guess what, Woody? You’d better hie yourself to a lovely garden my good man, you are about to see more spade work I think. Again I go back and quote Kafelnikov, Mr. Technique himself, who said once that the Williams sisters had no technique to speak of really, they relied on their power. Your comment though seems especially apt. Makes me realize what I love about watching them is NOT their finesse, in fact, can we even use that word at all with them? Funny thing though, I feel I don’t miss it with them, because I am really not expecting it. What I do expect is to see big powerful women pushing around babies, for the most part. That’s what I dig about the Williams sisters. Let Richard and Roger have a monopoly on the finesse, I love the sheer power and lust to hit big shots of Venus and Serena. They try and separate the ball from its cover, and I like that. Kleybanova is another one coming up who just wails on the ball like its life and death. Love it!
Maria, loved your account of the queue, I am happy your kids got the tickets for the match they really wanted. Sounds like waiting overnight there is as arduous as if you’d played the match yourself :0)
July 7th, 2008 at 6:53 am
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