STUART FRASER

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TENNIS
ANDY MURRAY 2008 REVIEW
Freelance Article
By Stuart Fraser
23^rd November 2008

Scotland’s Andy Murray ended a hugely successful year last weekend on a slightly disappointing note when Russian Nikolay Davydenko knocked him out of the Masters Cup in Shanghai with a straight sets win in their semi-final match.

There can be no doubt though that Murray has helped change the shape of Men’s Tennis at the top with the ‘big three’ of Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic now considered as the ‘big four’ with the inclusion of the Scot.

The 21-year-old from Dunblane has always had his critics and they were in strong voice at this time last year when Murray decided to part ways with American Brad Gilbert and rather than replace him with another individual coach, the Scot decided to appoint a coaching team consisting of fitness experts and specialist coaches led by fellow countryman Miles Maclagan.

Come the end of 2008 though and with a rise of eight places from his 2007 year-end ranking of 12, the World No.4 has been truly vindicated in his decision and the critics have been silenced.

Murray’s 2008 season began in Doha for the Qatar Open and the Scot felt that he had never been better prepared for a season after a gruelling training programme in the off-season. This was clear for everyone to see come the end of his first competitive week when he won his fourth career title after beating Stanislas Wawrinka in the final.

This ensured that Murray climbed back into the top ten in time for the Australian Open. Murray seemed to struggle though in his first few days down under when he lost to Marat Safin in the Kooyong exhibition event but slowly he seemed to accustom to the Australian heat and victories over Croatia’s Ivan Ljubicic and Australian Brydan Klein meant that he was finely placed as one of the outsiders for the first grand slam of the season at Melbourne Park.

Tournament organisers seemed to agree and gave him centre-stage billing in the Rod Laver Arena for his first round match against France’s Jo Wilfried Tsonga. Murray didn’t get off to the best of starts though going two sets to love down. The Scot however sparked a possible comeback when he took the third set to love but Tsonga went on to win the match by winning the fourth set in a tie-break. Murray hit a ball high into the Melbourne sky in anger and walked off court a beaten man on the first day of the tournament.

Critics immediately pointed the finger at the new coaching team and it was felt that they lacked the experience required to take Murray to the next level. The result though was given greater meaning come the end of the fortnight when Tsonga reached the final losing narrowly to Djokovic after a very impressive straight sets win in the semis against Nadal. Tsonga was in the form of his life and it was just bad luck that Murray came up against the Frenchman in the opening round.

However the criticism was still vociferous and even more so when Murray announced that he would not take part in Great Britain’s Davis Cup tie against Argentina in February due to problems with his knee.  Even his brother Jamie spoke out against him stating that “It kind of affects the way I feel about him”.

The younger Murray brother though went some way to silencing the critics when he won another title in Marseille the following week but a trend of ups and downs was beginning to appear when a few days later, Murray suffered a first round defeat to Robin Haase in Rotterdam.

This combined with his early exit in Australia meant that Murray was back out of the top ten but with three outdoor hard court tournaments in March in Dubai, Indian Wells and Miami, it was felt that it would not be long till the Scot would climb back up the rankings considering that the surface is generally regarded as Murray’s best.

Despite not being a Masters Series event, Dubai had attracted a strong entry list worthy of a Masters field and this threw up an intriguing first round clash between Murray and World No.1 Federer. The Scot lost the opening set but showed composure, determination plus several huge first serves to win the next two and knock the twelve-time Grand Slam champion out.

There was a noticeable difference starting to appear in Murray’s temper which had proved to be a bit fiery in the past and he seemed to be showing signs of maturity under his new team. The ‘new Andy Murray’ gave way to the old one though in his quarter final match against Davydenko and outbursts and swearing were a feature of his straight sets defeat to the Russian.

Consistency seemed to be lacking in the Scot’s game as well and this point was merely reinforced after a loss to Tommy Haas in the last 16 in Indian Wells and an early exit to Mario Ancic in Miami.

Murray’s ranking was continuing to slide and the Scot decided to make a new addition to his team for the forthcoming clay-court season in the shape of former French Open finalist Alex Corretja. Clay was considered as Murray’s worst surface and there were high hopes that the former World No.2 from Spain could help the Scot improve his results on the red stuff.

After a three week break however, Murray’s ranking had dropped to 20. By the time the French Open came along at the end of the May though, there was a general consensus that Murray’s clay performances had improved despite a mixed bag of results with a 5-4 win-loss record in the four clay court tournaments he had played and his rise in the rankings to 14 helped to prove that.

The Scot received a more favourable first round draw in Roland Garros for the second grand slam of the season, compared to the Australian Open earlier in the year, when he was drawn to play France’s Jonathan Eysseric who was ranked 390. The Frenchman though raised his game in front of his home crowd and took a two sets to one lead. Murray turned things round though and won the final two sets to come through a tough opening match.

An even tougher match was expected against clay-court specialist Jose Acasuso in the next round but Murray produced one of his best ever performances on clay to beat the Argentine in straight sets. The Scot’s clay court exploits ended though in the third round when in-form Nicolas Almagro knocked him out of the tournament.

Murray then headed straight back to Britain to prepare for the grass-court season and another assault on the world’s top ten as his ranking was back up to 12. Murray reached the quarter-finals at Queen’s but had to withdraw before his match with Andy Roddick due to a thumb injury. After missing Wimbledon the previous year, there were fears amongst the British public that Murray may again be missing from the action in London.

The Scot was never in doubt though that he was going to be a part of Wimbledon 2008 and impressive victories over Fabrice Santoro, Xavier Malisse and Haas set-up a fourth round encounter with young French rival Richard Gasquet.

The British crowd as always placed huge expectation upon Murray’s shoulders on this Monday evening on centre court and were feeling rather deflated when the Frenchman was two sets to love up and serving for the match at 5-4 in the third. While other players may have given up on themselves at this point, Murray is a born winner and amazingly managed to break Gasquet’s serve to level the set at 5-5.

The set then went to a tie-break which the Scot won with an amazing passing shot which sent the Wimbledon Centre Court crowd mad and could be seen as the moment which really endeared him to the British public who had a week earlier appeared to show more enthusiasm for qualifier Chris Eaton who was eventually dumped out in the second round in straight sets by Dmitry Tursunov.

Murray showed signs again of his improved temper by remaining calm during the match and seemed to channel his aggression into firing himself up which was the correct way rather than previous occasions where he would use it to come out with outbursts and expletives.

The Scot went on to win the final two sets to clinch the match and despite a quarter final straight-sets loss to Nadal who went on to become eventual champion, the Gasquet win was seen to be the turning point in Murray’s year which helped to give him even more confidence and reinforce his sense of belief that he belonged on the big stage.

Murray went into the US Open Series on the brink of re-entering the world’s top ten and the Scot did just that by defeating Djokovic for the first time in his career in the quarter finals at the Toronto Masters before succumbing once again to Nadal in straight sets.

The 21-year-old then went onto Cincinnati the following week and claimed his first ever Masters Series title by again defeating Djokovic in the final. Murray was in the form of his life and onlookers spoke of his improvement physically as a result of fitness work with his team which included Bikram Yoga sessions.

The Scot then travelled to the Beijing Olympics as the World No.6 and was one of the favourites for gold. Murray though was on the end of a disappointing first round defeat to the relatively unknown Yen-Hsun Lu of Chinese Taipei and also suffered a second round exit in the doubles with brother Jamie.

The 2004 Junior US Open Boys title was won by Murray and he regards the event at Flushing Meadows in New York as his favourite of the four grand slams. It was no surprise then that this tournament was to be the one that finally announced Andy Murray as one of the best players in the world.

The Scot got through the first two rounds fairly comfortably but in a match reminiscent of his Wimbledon encounter with Gasquet, he found himself two sets down and two points away from defeat by Austria’s Jurgen Melzer. Murray once again done the unthinkable though and turned the match round on its head by winning the tiebreak and taking the final two sets to clinch the match.

Two impressive wins then followed against Wawrinka and Juan Martin Del Potro before a semi final clash against Nadal who had recently been crowned as the new World No.1. Murray had failed to beat the Spaniard in five attempts but went two sets to love up before heavy rain forced the match to be suspended till the following day. Nadal came out like a raging bull and pulled a set back but Murray was just too strong for the 22-year old in the fourth and won it by 6 games to 4 to become the first British man since Greg Rusedski in 1997 to reach the final of a grand slam.

Roger Federer was the man standing in the way of Murray and the US open trophy though and the Swiss was determined to win his thirteenth grand slam title to prove his critics wrong who felt that he was past his best. The new World No.2 duly did by producing some of his best form of the year to defeat Murray in straight sets.

The Scot’s impressive results though had lifted him up to a career high ranking of No.4 and ten days later he returned to Wimbledon for Great Britain’s Davis Cup World Group play-off match against Austria. Despite Murray winning both of his rubbers though, his fellow countrymen failed to win any of their matches which meant Britain dropped out of the group of elite nations in World Tennis.

A month’s rest from competitive play was then taken by the Scot although he used the break to continue to work on his fitness and training. Murray returned to action at the Madrid Masters and clinched his second career Masters series title which included revenge over Federer in the semis for that US open final defeat.

Russia was the next stop for Murray where he retained his St Petersburg Open title but he could not continue his winning run in the Paris Masters where he was on the end of a quarter final defeat by David Nalbandian.

Qualification though had already been secured for the end of season Masters Cup in Shanghai which played host to the top eight players in the world. Murray got off to a great start in the round robin event winning both of his opening group matches against Andy Roddick and Gilles Simon. A gruelling three hour win over Federer though took a lot out of Murray physically and the Scot’s season ended the next day when Davydenko comfortably won their semi-final match,

This though has been the season where those who expected Andy Murray to become one of the best players in the game have been proved right. He has always had the talent but this year, he has improved both physically and mentally to prove his critics wrong.

The word from the Murray camp is that he is taking only a week off after his Shanghai exit before starting his pre-season training programme ahead of January’s Australian Open. The Scot is determined to win his first grand slam in 2009 and considering his rise to the top of the game this year, who would bet against it.