Wimbledon: Andy Murray revealed on Monday night that he had enjoyed a post-match conversation with Sir Alex Ferguson about “a few things he’s observed when he’s been watching me — not necessarily technical or tactical things, more sort of mental things, how you respond to tough or tight situations”.
One can only assume that Ferguson was offering positive feedback. Murray does not, on the face of things, seem to have come up against much adversity at Wimbledon this year, having romped into the quarter-finals without dropping a set. And yet he could so easily have lost his cool on Monday, especially when the weather took an unforeseen hand.
In the end, the way Murray adapted to the unexpected — a quality that Ferguson, with his gift for inspiring late surges, is justly renowned for — was the most impressive aspect of his 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 victory against Kevin Anderson. This was a match that could so easily have become a man-trap when rain forced the players off the court early in the second set.
The timing could not have been better for Anderson. At 3-0 down in the second set, he had been broken three times in seven attempts, which was not the sort of ratio he would have expected from his armour-piercing 134mph serve. Murray was cruising, frankly, and pulling off the sort of crazy touch shots that you might expect to see in an exhibition match. All that changed, however, as the glacial closing of the roof held play up for 25 minutes.
Anderson had a chance to clear his head and exchange a few words with his coach, Neville Godwin, another South African who had eliminated Boris Becker — albeit via an injury — from Wimbledon in 1996. On his return to the court, the 20th seed shrugged off what had previously looked like an inferiority complex and began to look his full 6ft 8in, or perhaps even more. “Obviously everything was going my way when we stopped,” said Murray, who endured what was only his second service break of the tournament immediately after the resumption.
“And then, yeah, it’s different conditions. He started hitting the ball cleaner. I started off a bit tentative when we came back out. “But, you know, I still did well. I knew I was going to get tested at some stage. And today I was pushed, especially in the middle part of that second set, then obviously later on in the third there were some tight moments. But I handled them fairly well.” Murray faced a mini-crisis — a set point, no less — at 5-6 in the third-set tie-break. The point came on his serve, though, and he responded by sending down a booming delivery that struck the line at the back of the box.
Two points later, Murray lined up one of his favourite flat backhands — which he was hitting like a dream all day — and clinched a victory that takes him into the Wimbledon quarter-finals for the seventh successive year.
It will be interesting to see how well Murray reads Gregor Dimitrov’s game today, for the Bulgarian has more variety and touch than any of the other young pretenders coming up through the ranks. Even though Dimitrov’s new coach, Roger Rasheed, has encouraged him to play the percentages more often, he still comes up with creative flourishes that can make the most jaded viewer gasp.
As Ferguson, who watched the whole match from the royal box, might have told Murray Monday night: “Always expect the unexpected.”
— The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2014
