"The Thinkingman's Andy Murray"
By John Gilman

While 2008 was the breakout year for Scotland’s Andy Murray, who rose to a career high number four ranking in the world, the seeds for this past year’s success were sown more than a year earlier in the epic 2007 Australian Open fourth round match he played against Rafael Nadal in Melbourne Park.  Much of the attention for Murray’s successful campaign in 2008 has been focused on his greater commitment to the physical side of the professional tennis player’s ledger, with the addition of a full-time strength and conditioning coach, physiotherapist and others in the Murray camp to more fully prepare him for the rigors of the grueling ATP season, but this underestimates just how dominant Andy Murray was in 2008 in his mental preparation for the game. In fact, in 2008 Andy Murray clearly played the most cerebral tennis on the men’s circuit, and this more than his increased strength and stamina propelled him into the top echelon of the sport. His most powerful attribute this past season was his ability to adapt his game beautifully to his opponent and the various court surfaces on which he has competed over the course of his landmark season, and it is this characteristic of his game that makes Murray the early on favorite to dominate the men’s circuit in the coming years. And again, this trait in the Murray game was first prominently displayed in his 2007 Aussie Open match-up with Rafa.

Both Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal came into their 2007 Australian Open quarters encounter on a roll, with the fifteenth-seeded Murray having won his first rounder with Alberto Martin while laying on the Spaniard two bagels and only giving up one game in the third set, and following that up with straight sets wins against the tough Fernando Verdasco and Juan-Ignacio Chela. Rafa had only dropped one set in his first three rounds, to Phillip Kohlschreiber of Germany in the second round, having beaten Robert Kendrick in straight sets at the outset of the tournament and then rolling through Stanislas Wawrinka with only the loss of six games in round three. Certainly most tennis lovers were giving the second-seeded Rafa the best chance of dethroning the reigning champion, Roger Federer in Melbourne Park in ‘07. But in their epic fourth round match, Andy Murray gave Nadal everything he could handle, pushing the Spaniard to five grueling sets, and looking poised to pull off the upset when he was up two sets to one. Eventually Rafa was able to prevail, closing out Murray 6-1 in the fifth, but not before the Scotsman had displayed all of the mental firepower that was to fuel his rise to number four in the world in 2008.

Andy Murray came into this fourth round encounter with a brilliant game plan to thwart Nadal’s powerful baseline game, as he consistently hit short to the Nadal backhand, forcing Rafa to play most points on the baseline of the high-bouncing surface at Melbourne Park, rather than at his preferred ten to fifteen feet back behind the baseline. By dictating Rafa’s court positioning with short balls to the backhand, Murray was able to rush Nadal on his big shot, that canon-like lefty forehand, and effectively neutralized that shot to a greater extent than anyone else had been able to do thus far in the tournament. The huge kick and lefty hook of the Nadal forehand did not pull Murray out of court with anywhere near the same regularity in this match as experienced by most Nadal opponents, because Rafa was simply feeling rushed on this wing by having to play in close to defend against the short balls hit to his two-handed backhand. Murray’s great touch with the drop shot was also very effective, as Nadal was never sure if he was going to get the short groundstroke to the backhand or the dropper, and Murray was able to stay nose to nose throughout the first four sets of this five set thriller. Eventually Rafa’s superior physical conditioning prevailed in this tight match, but not before Andy Murray had served notice of the brilliant playmaking that would come to define his 2008 season. If any vindication of the Murray game plan against Rafa at the 2007 Aussie Open is needed, one need look no further than the following round, where Fernando Gonzalez of Chile took out Nadal in straight sets in the quarters, utilizing virtually the same st rategy employed by Murray.    

The remainder of the 2007 season was not as fruitful for Murray, as a struggle with injuries and missed playing time kept him from building upon the very obvious success he had realized in that fourth round match with Nadal. But 2008 blossomed beautifully, as Murray won two of the first three events he entered, in Doha and Marseilles. These two titles were sandwiched around a disappointing (at the time) first round loss at the 2008 Australian Open to France’s Jo-Wilfred Tsonga in a fourth set tiebreaker, but which does not look like such a bad loss after seeing how the remainder of Tsonga’s tournament and year unfolded. His spring was a bit up and down, but included a win over Roger Federer in Dubai in March, and his quarterfinal run at Wimbledon once again ignited the tennis hopes of Great Britain and included a brilliant five-set win over Richard Gasquet in the round of sixteen before running out of gas to Rafael Nadal. However, from Wimbledon on in 2008, one can argue that Andy Murray was the best player in the world, despite losing to Roger Federer in the US Open final. He reached the semis at the Canadian Open, and won his first Master’s Series trophy in Cincinnati (beating world number three Novak Djokovic for the second straight week in the finals) leading up to the last grand slam of the year.

Perhaps Murray’s mental dominance of the men’s circuit in 2008 was never more in evidence than in the two-day, heavy and blustery semifinal at the US Open in Flushing Meadow, where Murray again locked horns with Rafael Nadal. Once again Andy came in with a brilliant game plan to take Nadal out of his comfort zone, and interestingly, it was a different strategy from that which he had employed in their tight five set encounter at Melbourne Park eighteen months before. Murray was being coached by Brad Gilbert at the time of the epic 2007 Australian match-up with Rafa, so perhaps some credit should go to the coach for that fine strategy, but Andy was on his own in 2008 when he again defused the Nadal powerful topspin game at Flushing Meadows. This time around Murray chose to take away Rafa’s rhythm, beautifully alternating soft, three-quarters pace, rolling groundstrokes which gave Nadal no pace with which to work, and mixing these with stinging, flattened-out shots off both wings that left the Wimbledon and Roland Garros champion looking for cover in the first two sets. Much was made of the brutally heavy and humid conditions of the first two and a half sets of their semifinal, which were supposed to have kept Rafa’s big topspin from kicking up to its customary height. But it was clear to me that Rafa’s struggles were with the brilliant variations of pace and spin that Murray was feeding him off of the ground, which again allowed Andy to completely dictate play from the baseline.  

The match was blown out by a tropical storm early in the third set, and was resumed late the following day under clear, but windy skies. Nadal closed out the third set, capitalizing on an early service break he had garnered just before the skies opened the day before, and the stage was set for an epic fourth set. Murray continued to use the same strategic mix of rolling topspin groundies and flattened out winners, keeping Nadal from dictating play, and he pushed Rafa to seven break points in the second game of the fourth set, before Nadal was able to finally level at one-all. Not surprisingly, disappointed at not cashing in one of his break points in the last game, Murray dropped service at one-all in the fourth set with an uncharacteristically sloppy service game. However, displaying the hard won mental toughness that made him one of the most difficult competitors on the men’s tour in ’08, Murray tightened up his game again and was able to get the break back and level the match with a great game at 3-2. A terrific fourth set of tennis was capped with epic points in Nadal’s last service game at 4-5, where Murray was able first to level at deuce from 40-30 after a long, beautifully played point by both players, and then to grab his first break point with another tightrope of a rally on the next, long point. A bit gassed after the last two grueling points from the baseline, Rafa opted for a drop shot that Murray was able to run down and rifle past Nadal to close out the semifinal match.  

Perhaps the stage was a bit bigger than expected for Murray the following evening in the final, where he did not play his best tennis in losing to Roger Federer in straight sets. Of course, this was Roger’s fifth US Open title in a row, so Murray is far from alone in not being able to handle Federer in the final at Flushing Meadows. However. Murray was able to recover quickly from his disappointing showing in the US Open final, winning two matches in Davis Cup two weeks later, and then winning his next two events, the Master’s Series event in Madrid (where he was able to beat Federer in three sets in the semis on the road to the title) and in St. Petersburg, where he simply dominated the tournament and only dropped five games in his last two matches. The close of 2008 at the Master’s Series Cup in Shanghai was a fitting crown to this superb season, as Andy won all three of his round robin matches, including knocking defending champion Roger Federer out of the tournament in their last round robin match, where he prevailed in another thrilling match 7-5 in the third set. Most commentators agree that the Federer-Murray match-up in Shanghai was one of the greatest matches of the year, with both players displaying every facet of their all-court games and playing string after string of unbelievable points. Roger’s lower back tightened up in the third set, requiring him to go for broke a bit more than normal, which only increased the drama of this superb dual. Out of gas the next day, Murray lost in the semis to Nicolay Davydenko in straight sets.

All in all though, 2008 will be remembered as the year Andy Murray made his move to the top of the men’s professional game, and where he displayed some of the most cerebral tennis to be played on the ATP circuit since Arthur Ashe retired. I think he would be the first to say that there are still several facets of his game that he is looking to improve upon- he is still on occasion a notoriously slow starter (and emphatically not a morning person, which can come into play at the Grand Slams), and his first service, which has beefed up considerably in the last year, can still go off in some matches. But in terms of pre-match strategy, diagnosis of his opponent’s strengths and weaknesses, and most importantly, his knowledge of the geometry of the tennis court, Andy Murray currently has no peers on the men’s tour. Roger Federer can still dominate on any given day with his brilliant all-court game, a gift that seems to synthesize the speed and grace of Bjorn Borg and the pure artistic genius of Illie Nastase at his best (when Illie was not being “Nasty” and in the mood to create), and Rafael Nadal will simply roll over most of his opponents with those explosive groundstrokes and a very underrated and much-improved all-court game. But given how much intellectual firepower Andy Murray has displayed in the last year to go along with his improved conditioning and great touch, it is hard not to give him even odds with those two titans of the tennis world these days, and make him the serious favorite against virtually everyone else he is bound to face in 2009. It will be very surprising if this does not all come together with a Grand Slam title for Mr. Murray in the coming year.