Cometh the hour: Andy Murray

On a typical sunny-turned-wet-turned-chilly Sunday evening, at about 6:15 p.m, on the outskirts of the capital city of London, Britain’s no.1 male tennis player, Andy Murray, had just been forced into pushing a forehand cross-court passing shot into the tram lines adjoining the Deuce court. In less than 5 minutes, at the presentation ceremony of the Wimbledon Gentlemen’s Singles, the Great Scot, as he is respectfully referred to in the tennis world, cut a dejected figure. He was reduced to tears by the sheer brilliance of a man who had just beaten him in 4 close sets in the final, Roger Federer.

A nation collectively sighed and even cried along with their hero, who the whole of Britain had hoped would achieve what no Brit (male) had for the past 76 years, since Fred Perry in 1936; win a Grand Slam, above all, the home slam: The Championships. His post-match runners-up speech was by far the most emotional speech one would have come across in recent sports history. This happened to be the fourth time Andy had managed to reach a Slam final, but with a zero percent success rate; thrice succumbing to Federer and once, to Novak Djokovic. Murray had roused the nation’s expectation by breaking Federer’s serve in the very first game. Although he would go on to surrender the break in the fourth game of the set, he broke his opponent’s serve at the business end of the set to inch ahead 5-4 and served out the set to 15. Centre Court gave him a standing ovation and deservedly so. Murray was by far the better player in the first set, hitting more winners, committing lesser unforced errors, and serving better than the surprisingly nervy and off-color Federer who was fresh from a sizzling performance, where he knocked out World No.1 Novak Djokovic in 4 sets in the semi-finals. Despite Murray maintaining his consistency in the second, Federer suddenly upped the ante in the 12^th game with a couple of well-timed winners, and aided by a Murray backhand unforced error, to break the Murray serve at 30-40 with a delicate backhand stop volley which audaciously turned at an angle of about 60 degrees, giving the Swiss superstar the set 7-5.

A rain delay meant the players had to continue on Centre Court with the closed roof since the beginning of the third. Murray let two break points slip away in the third game of this set. Once Murray had lost a marathon 20-minute sixth game of the third set, (which went to 10 deuces) surrendering his serve, sending a jaded backhand down the line straight into the net, Federer was not to be denied. The fourth set was more or less one-way traffic, with Federer getting the break of serve early in the set, and both players holding serve without too many hiccups until the culmination. We might have had a different result had Murray not over-cooked that backhand down the line at 30-40, 4-4 on the Federer serve in the second set. It would have been almost impossible even for Federer to claw back into the match from 2-sets down. But this is the new improved Murray we are witnessing. It is this very aggressive attitude of his that helped him win that first set, and be toe-to-toe with Federer for a major part of the second. He had often been accused in the past of being too regressive against the top players in the big matches. Not this time. As he sits down to collect the pieces together, he would reflect proudly on the fact that he tried to win, went for the kill in this Wimbledon final; never mind the bottom-line. With Ivan Lendl in his camp, he has the perfect person to console him. (Lendl himself lost his first 4 Slam finals before going on to win another 8). He can, however, look back at this, and be proud that he fought, created chances, and tried to make things happen.

Murray served extremely well in the first two sets with a high first serve percentage, many of which regularly cracked the 130-mph barrier. His second set first serve percentage was a very respectable 71%. It is this aspect of his game that continued to haunt him as in the past, when the chips were down. The third and fourth sets saw his first serve percentage plummet to less than 50%. (the match average being 59%).His body language in these sets too, especially in the fourth, took us back to the Murray of yore. It seemed like even if Federer would have faltered in the fourth set, and the match would have gone on to the fifth, Murray wouldn’t have had enough left in the tank by then to take it to the Champion.

The silver lining in this dark cloud though, is that the Scot is all of 25. There is a hunger for success in his eyes. The tears he shed at the end of the final were not sourced from any crocodile, and showed us that it really mattered for him. He has a lethal double-fisted backhand down the line, a developing forehand, coupled with an-already winning shot in the form of his off forehand, added to the accurate first serve, extra-ordinary counter-punching ability from the baseline, a delicate disguise in his drop shots, and great reflexes at the net. So he has all the weapons in his arsenal to break the strangle-hold of the Federers, Djokovics and Nadals over the Grand Slams; if only the mental aspect and relentlessness of the Slam winners can be inculcated by him. When there are former tennis greats like Ivan Lendl by his side, with his mother, herself a tennis coach back home in Scotland, the Scot is in great company, and it will just be a matter of time before he sheds the tags (of being the best player of his generation to have not a Grand Slam yet and the best of the rest, of the chasers), sooner than later. If it does not happen at the manicured lawns of the All-England club, it would surely happen on the famed blue rectangles at Flushing Meadows or Melbourne Park.

Murray, hopefully, will not have a reason to cry then. After all, he did not lose in the Wimbledon final. He was simply beaten by the better player that day. A national hero is already born. It’s just a question of when that hero would become a champion, a Grand Slam Champion. Britain’s wait shall be worth it!