wolf wrote:

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As usual Andy does enough to get the W but I am concerned about the lack of bite in his serve those big banging aces out wide to the ad court do seem to have gone. Also concerned that his defensive tactics are not going to work when someone is on real form e.g. Verdasco in the Australian Open and over the course of five set matches.

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Agree with Wolf's analysis. 8 aces for Andy compared to just 2 for Novak yet the total unreturned serve count was 15-14.

As with the victory against JMDP I'm left with a sense of concern about future contests. Andy was overly reliant on passing shots and errors from Novak. There will be times when Novak is on form and anticipates that Murray's passing shots tend to go crosscourt; in which case Andy will need to find different ways to win points.

I do think Andy is currently the best player on hardcourt but the margin is narrow. With Roger and Novak struggling to find their form, I would expect Andy to be dominant on this surface. The wind determind the outcome in Indian Wells given that Andy can't play his natural game in those conditions. It was a shame Andy was ill in Australia as he appeared to be in position to win his first slam.

I would like to see him play more expansive tennis, serve and volley some of the time, come to the net more, use the backhand down the line and crosscourt as aggressive shots. Perhaps it is only against Nadal that such an approach is required.

The clay season will be interesting. Andy could be the 2nd best player on the surface or he could be outside the top 10. I suspect he will have to be more proactive if he is to challenge the better players on clay. Last time around his 4 losses in the masters and at RG were largely a result of an inability to hurt his opponent's 2nd serve (39-27% won) and his own struggles on 2nd (40-48% won).

Anyway, 3 masters series titles in the last 6 events is highly impressive. Just waiting for him to win a slam now.




-- Edited by kundalini on Sunday 5th of April 2009 10:06:31 PM

It was a good win for Murray and even though he was 5-2 down in the second set, I never really had much doubt that he wasn't going to win the match.

Djokovic wasn't at his best, but Murray was always the better player throughout the match and recovered from his walkabout at the start of the second set well and was just putting one more ball into the court which was forcing the error from Djokovic.

The clay season will be interesting as we have no real idea as to how well Murray will perform - the good thing though about being ranked 4 is that he'll avoid the other big 3 until the semi finals, and if he has reached that far, then it will already be a great result for him.

I still think there are a lot of players out there who I'd fancy to beat Murray on a clay court, but if he can get some decent results (maybe 2 QF's and 2 R16 in the 4 big events), then he can try and get himself into the top 2 in the rankings