Count Zero wrote:

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lets hope he gets over it soon. his next match will be dc duty!

not how he wanted to return to the uk i am sure.

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 It will go one of two ways. He could struggle like or hell, or on the other hand someone could get one hell of a beating.

Count Zero wrote:

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i feel for anyone that paid £4 for that

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That's the first time I have seen anyone booed off the tennis court but I am sure they all paid a lot more than £4 to watch those 62 minutes.

I am sure that Andy will own up to letting himself down.

 

Just a bad day at the office for Murray I think, he looked really flat which was the weird thing. Looked as if he was playing a rd1 match in an ATP against a qualifier rather than the semis of the 5th biggest tournament in the world. He generally plays his best aggressive tennis when he's pumped up, I think that he's now got the balance a bit wrong between getting too pumped up and using up too much energy and not getting pumped up enough and just playing rather listless stuff.

As Ria said just so many errors off the backhand and really passive play - not much variety, it was reminiscent of his tennis this time last year. Djokovic was the one with all the variation and aggression, credit to him he played great and on this form he'd be tough for Andy to handle at his best. At their best there's not much between them from the baseline, they both have different strengths obviously but both can hit big off both sides and mix it up. I think that Djokovic has the edge serving wise, he can serve big consistently throughout a match while with Andy it's more periodic...Djok can also mix it up better with the topspin serve which he places excellently and is hard to read..his 2nd serve also comes down with more on it.

However, I wouldn't get down on Andy, ok he had a shocker today but what an achievement in the past two weeks !!!! Back to back semis in two of the biggest tourneys in the world, amazing stuff...Henman has never been past the quarters in Miami and neither has Rusedski ! He's gone further than Federer in both tourneys plus he's beaten guys like Haas, Davydenko, Mathieu, all world class players.

Been an incredible 2007 for him, apart from the Aussie Open he's never been knocked out before the semis and the only players to beat him have been Ljubicic, Nadal, Roddick and Djokovic.

I still have a lot of faith in his capabilities. We have been saying for some time that his is a complicated game and it will take time to get it all together; recent successes have made us a little over-optimistic as to the time it will take, perhaps. And also maybe we have been a bit guilty of making too much of wanting him to do everything ahead of Djokovic - maybe Nole is just plain better, or maybe he is just better younger and Andy will catch and pass him later. Time only will tell.

With gritted teeth I remind myself that I have kept posting that his best tennis should start from next year onwards.

I just hope he can recover quickly from this embarrassment.

With his first Masters Series title in sight, Andy Murray froze against the on-form Novak Djokovic and ended up on the wrong end of a humiliating scoreline 6-1 6-0.

This wasn't a case of one aspect of Andy's game failing to perform up to the usual standards, it was that nothing was working; he could barely manage to hit the ball in court. And on the backhand wing it was straightforward, he couldn't.

Murray might have been there in person, but his game simply didn't turn up. 41% of first serves in play and most of these were of the slow kick serve variety, rather than the fast aggressive serves that have been winning him cheap points this year.

The first game was somewhat ominous. Djokovic serving poorly, with a double fault and a shocking smash long, yet holding comfortably as Murray hit four tame unforced errors, three on the backhand side. Andy also held to 30 and looked in a promising position as Novak's lob went long for 0-40. Oh dear! Murray reached Djokovic's drop shot but his touch shot clipped the net and fell back on the wrong side. An ace and then perhaps the most important point of the match, a second serve, patient rally then a routine backhand into the middle of the net from Andy.

Murray had game point the following game but two unforced errors handed Novak the first break. 1 winner and 11 unforced errors from Andy in the opening set as Djokovic took it 6-1. Novak was playing sensible tennis, much as Mathieu had done earlier in the tournament, few unforced errors, with some intelligent variety, using the drop shot to draw Andy to the net, then passing him into the open court.

Surely Andy would wake up in time for the start of the second set. Sadly not. He started with a double fault and gifted the Novak the early break with two more unforced errors, this time wayward forehands. Though he fought back to deuce in Djokovic's opening service game, the Murray backhand still couldn't find the court, this one going long to waste a promising opportunity.

Double faults, scarcely believable groundstrokes, the match sped away from an increasingly annoyed Murray. A forehand volley into the open court sealing the victory for Djokovic.

Clearly the nerves got to Andy. The chance to reach his first Masters final, and a great opportunity to win the title, was more than he could cope with. His dismal first set display against Mathieu was far superior to the performance in either set in this semi-final.

After the high energy start against Roddick, it was surprising to see such a lacklustre beginning to the match from Andy. In hindsight the contest was lost even before the first point was played. Nor is the first time that the situation has been more than Murray could cope with. Against Baghdatis at Wimbledon and Davydenko at the US Open, there was a similar feel to the match. As though Andy just wanted to get off court as quickly as possible.

This will be a tough loss to comeback from. Novak Djokovic is quite clearly a long way ahead of Andy right now.

Well tomorrow is a new day I guess.

There's always the next challenge, the next event, the next milestone.

Davis cup beckons, then the European clay.

He will learn from this, of that I have no doubt. His pride will have been stung by what happened today but he's not a quitter. I think it will make him stronger in the long run because he'll be determined to make sure he's not on the receiving end of a scoreline like that because of anything HE does or does not do.

So chin up, let's focus on the positives of the week and look forward to what's next and count on him getting up after this and moving his game forward.