Andy Murray: the power and the glory

To win a Grand Slam title requires three distinct elements. You must be hugely talented, with your game as close to the peak of its potential as it is possible to be over a two-week period, and possess the style and technique suited to the conditions. Second, you must undeniably have good fortune on your side. And finally, you must be so impeccably prepared in terms of physical strength and mental resilience that you are durable enough to suffer all the demands that come with playing seven potentially lengthy matches.
Andy Murray definitely seems to have two of those boxes nicely ticked and probably thinks he is able to take his pen to the third. Don’t get me wrong, I am hugely impressed by everything he has shown going into the first major of the year and I’m firmly of the opinion that he will be the next player to be crowned a Grand Slam champion. He is undeniably a special talent who has it in him to win the greatest prizes. I’m just not yet convinced he is strong enough to show the bounce-back ability required.
I hear all the tales of Andy toughening up, putting on the necessary weight and muscle, running repetitions of 400m sprints until his lungs expanded to bursting point and his legs burnt. I see from his matches that this added strength has made his first serve a true weapon and nearly all the other facets of his game are sufficiently top drawer to emulate what Novak Djokovic did this time last year — following up a place in the US Open final by going one step better and winning the Australian title.
The impersonal computer read-out at Melbourne that takes the place of Wimbledon’s traditional velvet bag could not have been more amenable to Britain’s No 1, presenting him with the sort of potential first week that he could hardly have bettered if he tried. Another plus is the way tournament referee Wayne McKewen and his match scheduling team seem more than happy to agree with the requests of foreign television companies. I’d be amazed if Murray started any of his matches in the boiling glare of a sweltering Aussie early afternoon because that is in the middle of the night British time and the BBC would like Murray on court at breakfast time or later, when he can be seen on its interactive service. I’d love to banish such doubts because Murray is such a sensational talent that he deserves to open his Grand Slam account as soon as possible.
However, I think back to three matches last year and wonder. The first was his lacklustre exit from Wimbledon against Rafael Nadal a couple of days after sending the nation’s imagination into overdrive with that sensational fightback to beat Richard Gasquet in five sets. The second was the US Open final in September when, having finally overcome the Spaniard who was the man of the moment, he could not offer any great resistance to the supreme Roger Federer. And the last was the Tennis Masters Cup semi-final in Shanghai a couple of months later when, after beating Federer so magnificently, he was reduced to mush a day later when he faced Nikolay Davydenko.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Murray is now more than capable of beating anybody in the world on any given day. He’s proved that by taking out all the big guys at least once in the weeks since Wimbledon. I’m not totally sure, though, playing over the best-of-five sets, whether he yet has sufficient powers of recovery necessary to go through a potentially demanding climax to the second week when he could quite easily have to overcome first Nadal and then Federer. Abu Dhabi in an exhibition is one thing, the Australian Open is another.
That Murray has been installed as favourite for the title in some quarters won’t affect him in the slightest, though it would be wrong to say that when the balls start flying, top tennis players give no heed to a word that bookmakers say.
I can cast my mind back to 1988 and recall going into this tournament as the man with the shortest odds after winning Wimbledon and not thinking it exerted any added pressure. If memory serves me well, they only boosted my confidence a little more. On that occasion I came up short in the final to Mats Wilander but never once was that because I felt the pressure of expectation. He just handled the day better than I did.
In two weeks, Murray could easily be on the verge of becoming a Grand Slam champion for the first time. He has nothing to fear, the time zones work in his favour and his game is better than ever. Only one thing makes me think somebody else will win: the fact that Federer is a proven exponent at winning major titles.
Sure he’s lost to Murray in both Abu Dhabi and Doha this year but they weren’t tournaments that got Federer truly revved up. One was an exhibition and the other a lucrative season-opener that was nonetheless of modest status. The Aussie Open is one of the Grand Slams and those are events Federer knows how to win. He loves doing it and this year is determined to beat Pete Sampras’s record of 14.
source:the london times