Murray hasn’t the bottle to win a Slam
Columnist New coach Ivan Lendl will have his job cut out to improve Andy Murray’s mental toughness after watching him butcher his Australian Open semi final against Novak Djokovic at Melbourne Park last night.
Djokovic, the undisputed world number one and defending champion won 6-3 3-6 6-7 6-1 7-5 in a tick under five nail-biting hours.
Lendl looked totally bewildered watching Murray go from serving strongly supported by exhilarating strokeplay to serving double faults and playing plain dumb tennis.
The extremities. Lendl was never like that capturing eight Slam singles titles during his stellar career.
Lendl was world number one when Murray and Djokovic were born a week apart in 1987 – Murray the eldest.
The difference now is Djokovic survives on mental toughness, Murray implodes without it.
How could Murray lead two sets to one, and turn off in the fourth set to be flogged 6-1 in just 25 minutes, looking like a weekend amateur?
It doesn’t make any sense. Murray was in command, but soon wasn’t as Djokovic sniffed victory from left field.
The match stats don’t make any sense either:
Aces – Djokovic 11-9.
Double faults – Murray 10-9.
Unforced errors – Murray 86-69.
Winners – Djokovic 49-47.
Break point conversions – Djokovic 11 of 26 (42%), Murray 7 of 24 (29%).
Total points won – Djokovic 184-161.
I lost count of the number of times Murray led 0-30 on the Djokovic serve, only to lose the game by dumping regulation returns into the bottom half of the net. Dumb tennis, not concentrating on the job at hand that accounted for most of Murray’s horrific unforced error count of 86.
It was interesting watching the reaction of Australia’s tennis royalty to this extraordinary semi final.
With 51 Slam singles between them Margaret Court (24), Rod Laver (11), Ken Rosewall (8), Frank Sedgman (5), and Neale Fraser (3) looked stunned.
As was the full house with 155 unforced errors between Djokovic and Murray.
Sure there were many fantastic rallies of between 30 and 42 shots at full bore, using all the court. Then there were the unforced errors that brought gasps of disbelief.
Djokovic will need to lift his consistency in Sunday’s final against Nadal, even though the Serb has won their last six meetings.
Both singles finals have unusual and unwanted features.
Today’s ladies final between Maria Sharapova and Victoria Azarenka brings together the sport’s most piercing screamers with every shot.
The men’s final between Djokovic and Nadal the two worst offenders at time-wasting – Djokovic with his 12-20 bounces before serving, Nadal with his fidgeting and fiddling with his clothing, and ball-bouncing, before he serves.
It’s high time the screaming and the time-wasting were dealt with heavy penalties.
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January 28th 2012 @ 4:29pm
stabpass said | January 28th 2012 @ 4:29pm | Report comment
Murrays forehand to a right handers backhand has no great angle on it, unlike the majority of players, he cannot seem to take a right hander out of court with it, must work on this, i think they call it a inside out forehand.
Murrays best forehand is to another right handers forehand – cross court forehand.
Federers inside out forehand is great, with plenty of angle on it to push the opposition out of court.
January 28th 2012 @ 5:56pm
sheek said | January 28th 2012 @ 5:56pm | Report comment
Hi David,
This was a much improved & tougher Andy murray compared to previously. But that 4th set implosion was something else. And it continued into the 5th.
By the time Murray ‘re-awoke’, the game was just about gone. Very strange performance from Murray. Djokovic won on guts, his rhythm was missing for long periods. Nadal or Federer would have beaten him last night, I think. Murray probably should have, but couldn’t.
It’s going to be an interesting final. You could say Djokovic has got his “bad” game out of the way. But if he plays like this again in the final, I would suspect Nadal to win. I like both guys, so I just hope the tennis is worthy of the final.
January 29th 2012 @ 3:42am
Walt said | January 29th 2012 @ 3:42am | Report comment
Murray is a great player and he WILL have his day. He wanted to keep his energy and try and outlast Djokovic and his gamble didnt pay off. But he has the game, he could have won last night. He has made two AO finals so he is not an also ran – he just needs that little bit of extra mental game. He will get his trophy, it has never been harder with three of the all-time greats in Federer, Nadal and Djokovic to beat. But he is capable – and I am on the bandwagon. Hasnt the bottle? What a joke.