The last 12 months have been tough going for Andy Murray but his current form at Wimbledon suggests that he will once again be a threat at this year’s championships.
The Scot has made an impressive start to his title defence at the All England Club, brushing aside David Goffin and Blaz Rola for the loss of just 12 games.
His 6-1, 6-1, 6-0 thrashing of Rola marked his biggest victory at Grand Slam level since almost delivering Alberto Martin a triple bagel in the first round of the 2007 Australian Open (Murray was 6-0, 6-0, 5-0 up before Martin sneaked in a late game to prevent the whitewash).
It’s proof enough that Murray, who hasn’t won a title let alone reached a final since becoming the first British man in 77 years to reign at Wimbledon last year, is over the back injury which caused his form slump. After winning Wimbledon last July, he failed to get past the quarter-final stage at any tournament for the remainder of the year, and had his title defence at the US Open swiftly ended by Stanislas Wawrinka in the last eight.
Shortly after helping Great Britain reach the world group stage of the Davis Cup, Murray called time on his season to finally undergo back surgery, which had forced him to miss the French Open earlier in the year. However, he still finished the season ranked fourth in the world.
After falling to Roger Federer in the quarter-finals of this year’s Australian Open, and failing to defend his title in Miami when he lost to Novak Djokovic also in the quarter-finals, the Scot slumped to a six-year rankings low of world number eight.
He suffered his worst start to a season since starting to regularly compete on the ATP World Tour in 2005, so far failing to reach a final this year. Prior to that, he had reached at least one final before March each year between 2006 and 2013.
However, a run to the semi-finals at the French Open, where he only won six games against Rafael Nadal, has seen him turn a corner. With that run to the last four in Paris, Murray has climbed back to number five in the world.
He then kicked off his grass court season at Queen’s, where he was hoping to win a fourth title, tying him with the likes of Lleyton Hewitt and Andy Roddick, who had previously won the most prestigious pre-Wimbledon tournament four times each. Murray failed to defend his title, losing to the Czech Republic’s Radek Stepanek in straight sets in the third round, after failing to convert a number of set points in the first set.
This setback has not affected his odds of successfully retaining his Wimbledon title, which will face its first test when he takes on Spaniard Roberto Bautista-Agut in the third round on Friday.
Bautista-Agut has fast risen up the rankings this year, and notably upset Juan Martin del Potro in the second round of the Australian Open en route to reaching the fourth round, where he later lost to Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov.
Should Murray defeat him, as many would expect, then another seeded player will loom in the form of either South Africa’s Kevin Anderson or Italy’s Fabio Fognini, who got the better of the two the last time they played, in a Davis Cup tie in April.
Possibly awaiting Murray in the quarter-finals could be another opponent who has gotten the better of the Scot this year in Grigor Dimitrov. The Bulgarian defeated Murray in the semi-finals in Acapulco earlier this year en route to winning his second career title.
Dimitrov, otherwise known for being the boyfriend of Maria Sharapova, reached the third round of Wimbledon for the first time by defeating fellow former junior champion Luke Saville in straight sets on Centre Court.
He next faces Alexandr Dolgopolov in the third round. The Ukrainian has had some impressive results so far this year, including defeating Rafael Nadal at the prestigious Indian Wells tournament in California.
Should Dimitrov get past Dolgopolov, he will be guaranteed not to face a seed in the fourth round, after David Ferrer surprisingly crashed out of the tournament by way of a five-set loss to Russia’s Andrey Kuznetsov. Ferrer’s second round exit ended a streak of ten consecutive Grand Slam quarter-finals, during which he reached the final of last year’s French Open, going down in straight sets to Rafael Nadal.
It was also the first time since the 2010 French Open that he had failed to reach the second week of any Grand Slam tournament, when he lost to Austria’s Jurgen Melzer in the third round.
Thus, assuming Andy Murray reaches the quarter-finals of Wimbledon as expected, the only major block he could face on the way to a possible semi-final showdown against Novak Djokovic is Grigor Dimitrov.
The pair have met three times before, with Murray winning the first two, before Dimitrov prevailed in their most recent meeting at the aforementioned Acapulco tournament in February. Should they meet in the quarter-finals, this will be the first time they have met on grass.
Six of Murray’s twenty-eight career titles have come on grass, including last year’s Wimbledon title and the 2012 Olympic gold medal, while Dimitrov’s triumph at Queen’s was his first ever pro-level title on the surface.
The Scot’s recent grass court success should then lead into a semi-final showdown against Novak Djokovic, against whom Murray has never dropped a set on the surface. However, the Serb has been in as equally impressive form as he bids for a second title at the All England Club, despite being pushed to four sets by Czech veteran Radek Stepanek in the second round.
Additionally, Murray has not beaten any of his fellow career rivals (Djokovic, Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal) in the last 12 months, so it’s a record he will hope to turn around sometime this year.
With Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal both in the bottom half of the draw, the potential is there for an interesting pair of male finalists this year. Just who they will be is the big question.
What do you think of Andy Murray’s form at Wimbledon so far? Can he successfully retain the title?
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