Wimbledon Men's Singles final: Who will prevail in battle of the equals?

Andy Murray will have the crowd rooting for him to win the Championships tomorrow.

Oblivious to the ravages happening around them, both Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray have made sure that they are not cowed down by the flurry of upsets which started to hit Wimbledon right from the first day of the tournament.

While many seeded players in both men’s and women’s section of the draw had to make their exit due to injury, some of them were made to eat humble pie, playing against lesser known opponents.

Just when it all began to appear as though that this year’s Wimbledon was cursed, the disaster was averted – all credit to the top two players of men’s tennis who prevented the Sunday’s final from sporting an indifferent look.

Sensibly seeing off their opponents with some clinical display of baseline tennis, the top two seeds of men’s section have booked their place in the final for the third time in the last four Grand Slams.

So, the Serb-Scot rivalry is all set to occupy the centre stage tomorrow for just the second time at SW19, and given the way the two players have fared against each other in the last one year or so, we can rest assure that the contest is going to be a cracking one.

As we await the epic to unfold in 24 hours’ time, let us quickly have a look at the strengths and weaknesses of both the players plus their recent achievements, going into Sunday’s final.

Novak Djokovic

The World No.1 Serb has been claiming for the past few days that he is playing his best grass court tennis this year. True to his claim, aided by an innocuous draw, he was able to pin down his opponents up until yesterday’s semifinal without dropping a set.

The kind of form he has been in can be ascertained from the way he pushed himself back into the second set against Berdych in the quarter-final, despite languishing rather alarmingly with two breaks down. Though he had his back to the wall on numerous occasions during yesterday’s semifinal against the Argentine, Del Potro, he came out unscathed in the end at the end of a grueling five setter.

Time and again he has been proving to the whole world that he has the best mental resilience among his contemporaries, which helps him to prevail whenever his matches go the full distance.

Quite unusually, he has been having a very ordinary season this year. Barring the Australian Open and a title in Monte Carlo, he has not done anything exceptional. Since he could not complete a career Grand Slam this year which was originally in his priority list, he would be highly motivated to capture his second title in SW19.

Andy Murray

The decision to hire Ivan Lendl paid Andy Murray rich dividends last year as he was able to win his first ever Grand Slam title at Flushing Meadows.

But that was not the only reason the former Czechoslovakian great was roped in. Andy’s goal has always been winning a Wimbledon title in front of his home crowd. Working with Lendl, the Scot has improved his game exceedingly well. Though he missed out climbing the final hurdle last time around, he has battled hard to reach the final again this year, emerging from the tougher half of the draw.

His ability to win matches can never be questioned. The only thing which was lacking in him was his mental stamina but looking at his recent performances against Verdasco and Janowicz in the last eight and semi-finals respectively, it looks like he has overcome that lacuna too.

Like his Serbian adversary, Andy also has been having a quite year compared to his lofty standards. His first big victory of this season came in Miami. After having been forced to sit out during French Open due to injury, he did incredibly well to win at Queen’s, which was the warm up tournament preceding Wimbledon. With a tournament victory in grass under his belt already, he should be oozing with confidence as he takes on his arch-rival in Sunday’s final.

Novak Djokovic will be the pantomime villain in tomorrow’s blockbuster match against Andy Murray.

Head-to-Head

The Serb-Scot duo have so far played against each other 18 times at the pro-level. Novak clearly holds the upper hand in his head-to-head against the World No.2 Scot, having prevailed over Murray eleven times.

However, this should hardly matter for the local hero since most of his defeats have come on hard courts, which suits the Serb’s game. More importantly, their only meeting on grass came during last year’s Olympics and it went in Andy’s favour. So, he would be backing himself to repeat that performance on the Center Court tomorrow.

Who holds the edge?

To pick one person as the favourite to win tomorrow’s final is an uphill task because both are equipped with several weapons which could bring the downfall for the other. If World No.1 faces World No.2, it is difficult to tag someone as the underdog, anyway.

The strengths of both the players are more or less the same and since the final is on grass where they have met only once, it would be an intriguing match to watch from the spectators’ point of view.

Since none of these two possesses strong serves (where the Scot is only tad better) you may be seeing them struggling to hold on to their service games, especially because they both are the best returners in the game today. We saw enough of it in Shanghai last year where both of them kept on breaking each other’s serve at will every alternate game.

Since Lendl too over, Andy has started playing more attacking tennis. From being a baseline virtuoso who used to play the grinding game, he has now developed himself as a player with multiple skills. He does not hesitate going to the net nowadays.

In fact, he should do that more often than not against Djoker who has the best defense in the game. Murray should either make things happen by being more aggressive. He can only hope that the 2011 champion ends up making more unforced errors off his backhand just like he did yesterday.

For him winning the first set will be more important than for the six-time Grand Slam champion. Bidding to become the first Wimbledon champion from United Kingdom in 77 years can add to the pressure too. It may not necessarily be just a motivating factor.

However, if he stays focused on every point and keeps the ball on play, he can frustrate Nole. Plus, he will be blessed with unconditional support from the home crowd which should motivate him largely.

Novak, though, is a six-time Grand Slam champion and he knows what it takes to win a major. No matter what sort of predicament he is in, he has always found a way out of a hole, and that is his biggest strength.

Andy may have a better grass court game but the mental stamina of the Serb will not be easy to match. If his backhand does not orphan him and he could win more points at the net just like he was able to do against Janowicz, Andy will have to dig deep to make any inroads.

However, considering the fact that the surface is grass where Andy had an incredible win over seven-time champion Roger Federer last year during summer Olympics, I feel that he might have a slight edge over his opponent.

Prediction: Andy Murray to beat Novak Djokovic in five sets with a couple of tie-breakers.