Sabadell Atlántico Open (ATP Barcelona) - €888,000 - R2: Murray vs Ancic

Drew · Apr 29, 2008

RE: Sabadell Atlántico Open (ATP Barcelona) - €888,000 - R2: Murray vs Ancic

Drew · Apr 29, 2008

Just noticed 3 retirements today so far with 2 yesterday !

Madeline · Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

Sigh. I wish there were a livestream for this match, it looks very close.

murrayfan99 · Lower Club Player

held to love I think - signs of life - like last time he began to look vaguely interested in the 2nd set

Drew · Apr 29, 2008

BP Ancic....again Andy is staring down the barrel here........6-4 4-3*

Drew · Apr 29, 2008

Saved....4-4 !

Drew · Apr 29, 2008

Andy serving at 71% but the stat that is killing him is 1/5 BP chances !

jamatthews · Strong Club Player

6-4 6-4 Ancic

steven · Tennis legend

Ouch! I thought it would be close, but I did think Mandy would do enough to win today.

Madeline · Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

Is it too much to hope that he may soon get a draw WITHOUT a banana-skin in the first match?

helki · Futures qualifying

I don't know about a banana skin: he's sending me bananas.

christian · Intermediate Club Player

I think the only thing that makes it worse is his ridiculous comments.

"I didn't get that fired up for the match" Why not?

"I was flat. I was going to be here practising anyway, so I had hoped to get a few matches.
But my priority is to train for Rome and Hamburg. I wanted to continue from last week, but (playing here) is not the be-all and end-all."

That's ok then I mean if you were only going to be here practising then why bother getting fired up?

As each week goes on I get more and more worred for Andy and really don't see where he is going. Each and every one of these 'coaches' that he is bringing in to tell him what he wants to hear is doing no good. It seems as soon as he has a coach who tells him something he doesn't want to hear then it's goodbye.

murrayfan99 · Lower Club Player

Well the comment was stupid in the sense that he was being too honest for his own good. Other "top 10" players lose to worse than Ancic - more often than not because they're insufficiently "fired up".

However it's very frustrating to see from the scoreboard that he came out - missed all 4 first serves and got broken to love in his first service game - that seems really stupid.

Hard to tell from the bbc report - but it doesnt sound quite as bad as the comedy of errors that the two of them served up last time.

-- Edited by murrayfan99 at 22:24, 2008-04-29

-- Edited by murrayfan99 at 06:51, 2008-04-30

The Hoose · Satellite level

I'm with Christian. It's rather poor that he's unable to get fired up for every competitive match he plays - he spends his life practising for 20 tournaments a season, travels round the world to get to them and then can't bring himself to focus for an hour and a half on the job in hand. And sport isn't the hardest thing to get psyched up for anyway.

You can understand players having a bit of a breather off the back of a couple of successful tournaments but Andy hasn't exactly set the world alight over the last month.

Perhaps Andy could learn from Henman in this respect, as long as he doesn't adopt the fist pump.

indiana · Tennis legend

Christian has expressed some of the thoughts I came on here to express.

I am getting seriously worried about Andy.

I think that he has so much talent and can potentiallly get to the very top, i.e. I mean regular top 5 player, masters winner, grand slam semis at least, perhaps better.

However, I have always had this nagging worry about how much he is prepared to work to get there, I mean really work, dedicate himself to it as a mission and be aware that talent by itself is far from enough.

We have all had a laugh from time to time about the famous not an early person, can't get out of bed, but actually I think that in part reveals too much of how he is.

I think he needs folk to push him, to make him work, to make him believe hard work and dedication willl get him to where he needs to go. To "fire him up", yes basically to put a rocket up his backside.

Surrounding yourself on the circuit with "friends" as fellow travellers and coaches may make life good for a little while ( and I am not actually surprised that early on he maintained his results under the new basis ). But longer term, as Christian says, will they really tell you what needs to be told, push you that extra bit that needs pushed and give you the quality coaching to help make the best of your talents.

Another thing that does concern me is OK, I thought maybe he didn't work hard enough to improve his game. But in a match the Andy Murray I know fights to the end. What's going on in the last 2 matches ? Monte Carlo at 5-4 in second set loses service to love finishing with 2 double faults and hence loses the match.. Barcelona at 4-4 in the second set, misses break points, then loses service to love and hence loses the match.

It makes me nostalgic for the days when he and Brad Gilbert were staring down each other, he was fighting and he had a fighter as a coach, who I suspect would work him and make him fight to the end and make the best of his talents. Gilbert was a man who had coached the best, clearly improved some already good players, and himself as a player made the absolute best of his talents. At their each best, who is more talented between Gilbert and Murray ? Undoubtably Murray. Who would you bet on to win ? mmm.

Hey, but Andy wasn't enjoying life with Brad. So, hey, just chuck it.

Spring last year, Andy Murray was clearly one of the top 5 players in the world. Now, he clearly is not.

Time to have a step back, son, and think where you really want to go with your career, what you want to achieve and and then show that you really see it as a mission and show total dedication to reach these goals. To do otherwise is to cheat yourself.