ATP weeks 26-27 - Wimbledon

eblunt · Club Coach

RE: ATP weeks 26-27 - Wimbledon

RJA · Hall of fame

eblunt wrote:
I'm still not convinced on what Lendl has to offer. I never quite got it in the first place ... if you've lost your first 3 GS finals, I would have thought the last person you want in your camp for the next GS final is a bloke who lost his first 4.
I'm seriously hoping to be proved wrong on this, but I don't believe he'll win a GS while Lendl's involved. Andy's problems are in his head, and Lendl isn't a qualified psychologist as far as I'm aware. Sure he overcame his own problems and went on to win plenty, but that doesn't necessarily mean he knows how to do the same for Andy.

I see where you are coming from but I don't agree.

Who better to look Andy in the eye and say "you have lost 4 finals but you can still go and win a load of them". Sure anyone can say it, but from most people it is hollow.

Besides, I always thought the most important reason for appointing Lendl was that Andy had someone in his corner who is willing to tell him the harsh truth. Everyone else in his camp are probably too close to him for that.

indiana · Tennis legend

To me, apart from it being Andy's best performance in a Grand Slam final, one really notable thing is that I have hardly seen or heard of anyone blaming tactics or attitude as particularly significant in Andy's defeat.

His tactics have so often been questionable, either from the start or within matches. To me, this time he had them right, the correct degree of aggression. What we are discussing is such as missed forehands on breakpoints, but one particular important one I recall he hit positively and it went long. It was a shot that should have been made, and what failed him was execution. There were some other similar instances, and shot issues such as his first serve going missing at some important times, notably that long long game when he got broken in the 3rd set. But as Andy said himself afterwards, this time he wasn't second guessing himself. To me, and it looks as if to him too, it is better to have played the right shots and missed them than lose by playing the wrong way. Unlike against Nadal in last year's SF, he kept playing positively after misses. This is the way to play and he seems now to recognise this.

His attitude has much improved, but Andy still has to watch his body language at times. I felt this was particularly important on Sunday. This was a Wimbledon final with the crowd so eager to get behind him. The sort of hangdog way he was at some times such as early in the fourth set cannot encourage the crowd and is likely to subdue the atmosphere. Absolutely counterproductive, In the fourth set, his body language actually improved after he was broken, he looked more eager again, a few c'mons, and the crowd began to respond more again, which can only help. Lessons to be learned there, give then energy to feed off and feed back again onto court.

All in all though, a very encouraging week, he's improving in areas that needed to be improved, some which have been long pointed to. Just wish some lessons had been learned some time ago !

Re Lendl's input, clearly we don't know the inside story, but folk have long been trying to suggest such as he play more positively / less passively and use less negative energy on court, including evidently previous coaches. I would suggest that these things improving with Lendl as coach may not be coincidental, and given that and the still relatively short time they have been together, it does seem rather illogical to dismiss how important Lendl may be and may continue to be as Andy's coach.

His Australian Open ( particularly vs Djokovic ) and Wimbledon performances have been very encouraging. To say nothing has changed with Andy is to me just untrue and it certainly seems a player / coach relationship worth sticking with for a while yet.

Hard luck lad, beaten by the better player on the day, but not beaten by himself !

-- Edited by indiana on Monday 9th of July 2012 07:56:50 PM

eblunt · Club Coach

Spectator wrote:
I do not think that one year ago Mr Murray would have made it to the final -- don't think he would have been able to handle the series of high-pressure matches, particularly the QF and SF ones. To have made it through Ferrer and Tsonga, with all the mental, tactical and physical challenges they posed, back-to-back and with so much at stake was a tremendous accomplishment. And he looked rock-solid doing it. Do people really think it's coincidence that he's improved so much since Lendl came into his camp? He (Mr Murray) doesn't seem to think it is!

Watching his box at the end was, in addition, so moving. The intensity of camaraderie and affection was a real tribute to him. And yes, I like the fact that Lendl was outwardly still pretty impassive. It's good to have both steel and emotion on your side.

I've always had this slight niggling fear that Mr Murray just might not quite be able to win a Slam. It's gone. Wish him all the best.

-- Edited by Spectator on Monday 9th of July 2012 01:23:51 PM

-- Edited by Spectator on Monday 9th of July 2012 01:24:29 PM
I don't agree. He's never had a problem with beating 'non big 3' players in the slams (he doesn't win them all, , but overall a very good record ). He wouldn't have reached 10 GS semis if he couldn't.
It's his record against the big 3 in slams only ever beaten a fully fit Fedjokodal once in a slam in over 5 years of trying. Wimby this year was the first time he's had a big 3 clear run to the final for over 2 years, so IMO nothing to do with Lendl's input, the fact that he's got to the final, and Lendl's changed nothing in that he's been well beaten in the final again by Fedjokodal.

RJA · Hall of fame

So basically your thoughts can be summed up as "he didn't win so Lendl has changed nothing". That strikes me as a very, very simplistic view of a pretty complex situation.

RJA · Hall of fame

Armchair wrote:
I'm not that fussed about the Olympics but looking forward to the US Open with interest.

I don't completely disagree because winning the Olymipics is no where near winning a slam. However winning the Olymipcs could do for Andy what Serbia's Davis Cup win did for Djokovic.

Spectator · All-time great

Thought I'd just have a look at what some of the European papers were saying about the match, and about Murray. (On the thesis that these are countries that care passionately about tennis and can't be accused of favouring Murray because they're English or Anglophiles!) Here are some links. Not enough time to do more, but maybe someone else will. There's some very interesting stuff about Federer and also about Mr Murray -- on the whole really positive about his level and his play, particularly in the first two sets.

Carlos Moya's take: http://deportes.elpais.com/deportes/2012/07/08/actualidad/1341778942_302008.html Ends with "I really enjoyed Murray, and despite his having lost, his level was much higher than in the three earlier GS finals he'd played. He can't reproach himself for anything."

And a German take: "What we saw was a completely different Andy Murray" http://www.faz.net/aktuell/sport/mehr-sport/wimbledon-roger-federer-kehrt-zurueck-auf-den-thron-11814457.html

And one which was on Federer, but which I thought was quite interesting: http://balle-de-break.blog.lemonde.fr/2012/07/09/comment-federer-a-retrouve-son-rang/

And a nice one from the US, for both Murray and Marray: http://blogs.tennis.com/thewrap/2012/07/all-england-a-list.html

-- Edited by Spectator on Monday 9th of July 2012 10:50:58 PM

-- Edited by Spectator on Monday 9th of July 2012 10:52:18 PM

eblunt · Club Coach

RJA wrote:
So basically your thoughts can be summed up as "he didn't win so Lendl has changed nothing". That strikes me as a very, very simplistic view of a pretty complex situation.
We'll see in a years time how much Lendl changes :)

stevemcqueen · Futures qualifying

Is there another player who has lost 4 GS finals withour ever going on to win one? I'm not sure that there is....

eblunt · Club Coach

Spectator wrote:
Well, we'll have to agree to disagree :)

In terms of who he's beaten in the past and to whom he's lost ... I don't think you can compare this year's draws with previous ones. I'm not a statistician -- so make no claims for what follows! But I did a rough-and-ready average of the rankings of his opponents in 2011 and 2012. In 2011, AO was 40, RG was 66 (what a gift!), W was 39 and USO was 40. This year, Wimbledon was 25, and Ferrer and Tsonga were (realistically) 5th and 6th respectively in the world, whatever their Wimbledon seeding. He's never gone through two top ten players back-to-back before in the late rounds of a slam. And the time when he had the next scariest average ranking of opponents (2010 RG -- about 36 ... but it should have been worse than that, as Gasquet was underranked), he went out to Berdych in the fourth round.

-- Edited by Spectator on Monday 9th of July 2012 02:18:04 PM
Of course, thats what discussion is about. Personally I dont think average rankings is a really meaningful guide to toughness of draw. I'm Sure Andy would prefer to draw Berdich/Tipsy/Almugro rather than Djoko/Rafa/Gasquet ( both average about 8 )

MiloTheCat · Lower Club Player

I know this is the conventional wisdom:

Andy's problems are in his head

It seems a bit unfair - his record of reaching slam semis and finals shows a player that despite obvious weaknesses can keep his head and manage to find a way to win most of the time.

His game just isnt good enough against the top three in slam-mode.

One of the surprises of the first two sets was that Roger didnt get after Andy's 2nd serve much, but in the 3rd and 4th he got plenty of opportunities (1st serve % was under 50%) - and it started to hurt Andy.

2nd serve points won was the critical difference in the 5th set at the Aus open semi final earlier this year.

To win a slam he would need to encounter one of those guys on a bad day - or put in a great serving performance (such as he managed against Ferrer).

.... and once the serving is sorted - would be nice if he could rediscover his aggressive backhand down the line

Re the game plan: I'm not so sure about the lobbing - but Fed did a good job of coming forward and intimidating Andy.

By the way if that sounds negative - I'm such a diehard Andy fan I camped/queued for 2 days for 4th round tickets!

Jan · Hall of fame

I definitely agree about that great backhand down the line - we hardly ever see it now.

Madeline · Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

I was wondering if they have been concentrating so hard on improving the forehand that he is out of practice with the backhand dtl!

Helen40 · Grand Slam Champion

Thanks spectator, I always find it interesting to know what the rest of the world thinks about the Brits.

I remember being abroad once and the commentator referring to Tim as Tiny Tim, when in the UK, we all called Tiger Tim....
Verrry intereresting.

Spectator · All-time great

Yes, I'm with you, Steven. I actually thought it was an incredible runners-up speech -- though much of what I really liked it for was the same stuff that I've always liked ... the laconic, self-deprecating humour; the painfully rigorous honesty; the clear affection for his team. But I found his tears very moving - all the more so because they were so clearly involuntary. (And what I really love is the fact that he apologised to Federer, not wanting to appear to be "attention-seeking." Bless him, he is a good egg.)

I think what he expressed more in that speech than I can recall seeing him do before was his sense of gratitude to the general fans. It may be that people who hadn't intuited it had thought it wasn't there ... so I can see why articulating it would gain him affection.

But (a) if people couldn't work out that "he cared" until he cried, then, as O'Neill implies, collectively we're really poor judges of character. And (b) it makes you wonder if we'll ever confront the gap between the "gilded amateur" paradigm and the reality of current sport. Murray not only works hard; he shows that he works hard .... and celebrates it. And that makes some people really uncomfortable. It's all supposed to look easy -- at the same time as any sane human being recognises that the level of athletic perfection attained by the top tennis players now can only come from stunning amounts of work.

You could argue that professional sports has become a bit of a monster -- that in a world where there are so many genuinely urgent needs, players and spectators spending so much time and money on athletic pursuits is problematic. I'd respect that argument and at base agree with it. But I don't think that you can do what so many seem to do -- engage with the spectacular athletic accomplishments, celebrate them, enjoy them ... and then look down your nose at someone who admits and makes visible the extraordinary dedication and hard work that makes them possible.

-- Edited by Spectator on Tuesday 10th of July 2012 04:45:18 PM