Andy Murray: I Feel Like My Best Tennis Is Still Ahead Of Me

Then show us, Andy. PS: Don’t play Davis Cup – it will be exhausting, even without Nole’s presence.

July 10th, 2016 at 6:20 pm

Big congrats to Andy and his fans, real ones of course, well desreved title, now we have the battle for #1.

July 10th, 2016 at 6:42 pm

Is Novak on the verge of losing number one?

July 10th, 2016 at 8:16 pm

he has about a 1000 pt lead in the live race, django (because andy’s dc points will fall off), but novak has a much larger lead in the rolling rankings so he’s going to hold onto number 1 for a while still…. however, the year-end race for #1 is definitely tighter now, with andy winning wimbledon and novak losing early. although novak has won 2 slams and 3 masters this season, it’s still not enough to secure the top spot; goes to show how tough it is to hang onto it.

July 10th, 2016 at 8:55 pm

With titles in Rome, Queens and Wimby, runner up in Madrid and RG, Murray has the more points acumulate after clay season.

For the tear Djoko was number from Jan to April and Murray Clay and Grass.

Who ever gets the most in North America, Asian Swing and Indoor finishes number 1.

Murray seems get the momentun now but the 2 losaes he suffer since Madrid were to Djoko wjo still has the edge on him. And once HC starta were Djoko only lost a handfull of matches since last year (Canada to MurrY, Cincy to Federer, London RR to Federer and Dubai to Lopez) he is the clear favorite. Unless he still has some mental exhaustion after RG.

We may have minimoze how that title drain him, he was trying to win it since 2011 realistically. And that was why many of us thought he wouldn’t be 100% sharp for Wimby.

But now Murray knows he has more Slams in him, he just have to beat Djoko again in a Slam. Time will tell.

My money still is on Djoko USO. But i have to assess how he will fare in Rio, Canada (if he’ll play) and Cincy.

July 10th, 2016 at 11:06 pm

That’s brilliant to hear from Andy! Hope this win propels him to win more slams, he’s always liked the USOpen….;)
jane, 800.

July 11th, 2016 at 1:37 am

hi margot, i read that there’s another 200-300 DC points that andy can’t defend because of the new 2016 rules, which state that the ATP no longer rewards points for davis cup. those points will be falling off andy’s total (which is why it’s more like a 1000-1100 spread of points). but right now in the race it shows as 800, yep; he’ll just lose those other pts before year’s end #1 is decided.

July 11th, 2016 at 1:50 am

As some one rightly suggested, Andy needs some rest and he should not over expose himself. It would be prudent on his part to skip the Davis Cup.

July 11th, 2016 at 2:36 am

Andy has to defend 1000 points and Nole 600 points in Canada.
I am curious how the second part of the season will be. Andy is now more confident. I only hope that Novak will get back strong enough.

July 11th, 2016 at 2:45 am

Murray’s age has just begun. I predict between 2 and 4 slams for him in the next 18 months. Djokovic will probably bag at least one or two of those. maximum of up-to 3 more for Djokovic and 5 for Murray. Slam chapters will end for both then. They might continue playing like Fed is still. By the way found an interesting new tennis blog with a very refreshing writing style, check it out at http://www.138mph.com/another-record-for-roger/

July 11th, 2016 at 3:25 am

It would be good to hear some positive news re. Nole’s well-being….instead of bits and pieces…musing aloud is irritating. And Rio is not far away.

July 11th, 2016 at 3:49 am

Not convinced about Raonic yet. A 35 year old almost beat him in 4, and a 29 year old wiped the court with him yesterday.

Still no top level young players. What an era!

July 11th, 2016 at 7:52 am

J-Kath, I think Novak is just being considerate and not diverting attention away from Andy and Milos’ time, before aying what’s up with him. Certainly, before the UK-Serbia Davis Cup starts, something will be coming. My guess is he jarred his left shoulder in a hard fall in the round before Querrey, and he will say in his new Age way about how his “energy” was depleted at Wimbledon.

July 11th, 2016 at 1:45 pm

Chrisford 1

Could indeed be what you say. As you probably know he has withdrawn from Davis Cup. He deserves the rest so not too surprised that he won’t be playng.

(While Andy seems to feel he needs to support his “mates” and thus will be present in Serbia, he is supposed to confirm he won’t be playing by this evening).

July 11th, 2016 at 1:52 pm

PS: When I said “musing aloud”, I meant musing aloud in print by possibly sensationalism journalists.

July 11th, 2016 at 1:56 pm

Murray should be very happy. He is able to tire Novak out while Fed tanked against another non-Slam guy. Fedal struggled badly at Wimbledon but 7 years ago, no one mentioned it.

Novak won numerous finals, had many high level matches and didn’t get much stretching/rest.
The guys that lost to him on clay had less pressure for Wimbledon or lost in qf/sf in Germany, so there was no stress for them.
The fed matches in 2005-6 were like walkovers. Fed fans shouldn’t laugh at Novak.
Bring 29 year old murray and 24-25 yr. old raonic to 2005-6
to pummel Hewitt and Roddick at Wimbly.

Novak didn’t practice enough on grass. An exhibition with fooling around made him more mentally tired, and he overestimated his endurance. He was in pain by Wimbly 2nd round.

July 11th, 2016 at 1:57 pm

Some tennis-x posters are indeed so, predictable, with their Andys less worthy GS winner because Novak was unfit/ mentally tired, and Federer tanked, Raonic was a first time GS finalist take your pick, saw this one coming a mile away, come on bring on the excuses lol, god forbid Andy would actually get any credit for winning ….

July 11th, 2016 at 2:15 pm

Murray won. Period. The naysayers can bay all they want. I’m happy Andy won. Period. Those predictable whiners only make Andy’s win even more sweet because it seems to really bother those who do not like him. Sweet victory!

July 11th, 2016 at 2:49 pm

Right on Markus. The church of novak can’t comment without the word “novak” in it.
Andy “belongs” now in the elite, his performance this year proves it. This Wimbledon I loved his creative thinking on the court and selection of shot making. He’s got more tools in his bag now than anyone on tour, just needs to continue to use them in the right moments.

July 11th, 2016 at 2:56 pm

Murray has gone unbeaten on grass this season, like he did in 2013, also one thing hes done that even the world number hasnt is make all 3 GS finals so far this year ….

July 11th, 2016 at 3:19 pm

Where are CDP and Colin ? ….

July 11th, 2016 at 3:29 pm

J-Kath- That is excellent news about Andy skipping, for both the UK and Serbia. And certainly for Andy. Murray has been pedal to the metal since clay season started. He needs a break before the Olympics. Both nations can medal in the Olympics with their stars (inc. the Murrays in doubles) vs medal odds lowering sharply if they ended up playing tough DC rubbers.
Either should be available for semis DC play after the USO is done, depending on which nation wins.
And for DC fans, it makes the odds in the QF event in Belgrade fairly even.

July 11th, 2016 at 5:09 pm

J-Kath,
I don’t think Novak will ever disclose what and if something bothered him at Wimbledon. What Serbian papers say only is that he organized a surprise trip for Jelena to celebrate their two year wedding anniversary. He also quoted Nikola Tesla celebrating Tesla’s 160 birthday. He will most likely skip Canada.

As for Davis Cup, the weather forecast is rain. This is very strange for Serbia during the summer. We will have the temperatures of about 38C in shade up until Friday when 22C is expected. Since neither Nole nor Troicki will take part in this tie, GB will beat us easily even without Andy.

July 11th, 2016 at 9:20 pm

jane: “…goes to show how tough it is to hang onto it.”

Or how over weighted the MS titles are…philosophically, Murray shouldn’t be in with a chance unless he wins the US Open. You can make the weights to/say anything, though.

July 12th, 2016 at 2:39 pm

“You can make the weights to/say anything, though.”

not sure i follow this bit, MMT.

so you think masters are too heavily weighted at half a slam’s weight in points: 1000 vs 2000? with that, i’m not so sure i agree. after all, masters feature the top 32 seeds generally, and in theory, and usually most or many are there because of the “8 mandatory” factor. then, players usually have to play all or most of their matches back to back, no day off in between like at the slams. yes, they’re played as best of 3 set, which is one reason why they’re worth just half of a slam’s total, but they feature tight timelines and top-flight competition. indeed, sometimes the early rounds of slams are more like 250-level events in terms of the competition, by comparison. one thing i will say, though: i don’t see why the top guys get – or even would need – “byes.” they should just play from round 1 like all the others.

July 12th, 2016 at 3:17 pm

Jane: I always understood the bye was not just to protect the top players but to give quali’s and other low seeded players a chance (re. get payment for 1st round + let them assess where they were against a mixed field that did not initially include the top 4 of the tournament.)? Would be very sole-destroying to find out that you have to beat Nole, Nadal etc. in your very first professional match.

Second round therefore offers a fairer playing field to a better degree?

July 12th, 2016 at 3:51 pm

oh that’s cool j-kath, and it makes perfect sense too; i like it :)

July 12th, 2016 at 4:00 pm

jane: For me, there are too many MS series events (9) the totality of which is worth more points than the majors…that’s absurd. If a player won 4 MS titles, he would have the same points as a player winning 2 out of 4 majors. That too is ridiculous. Also, they are best of 3, rather than best of 5 – most of them used to have best of 5 finals, but since the ATP money machine wants more of them, they capitulated to this stunted format.

Historically speaking, it’s easier to win an MS title than a major – that has less to do with the competition in the first 2 rounds, than how committed the players are to winning each of them – it varies, and so too do the results. There is a whole cadre of players who have a lot of MS titles who’ve never won majors, the reverse is not the case at all, so for me a player winning 1 major and a bunch of MS titles, shouldn’t come anywhere near a player winning 2 majors.

Djokovic is continuing to have one of the best years on record (despite his aberrant result at Wimbledon) in the history of the game, but Murray is within striking distance. That just doesn’t work for me. Back in 1982 some of the same tournaments that are now MS titles were in existence, and although he didn’t win any majors, John McEnroe somehow finished the year ranked #1, whereas Connors won Wimbledon and the US Open, and somehow came out the worse for it. Marcelo Rios became #1 March of 1998 and he’d never gotten past the QF at a major with the exception of the Oz Open that year. He had won Monte Carlo, Indian Wells and Miami, and as a result surpassed Pete Sampras who was the Wimbledon and Australian Open champion at the time.

That’s a reflection of the computer over-valuing MS titles, in my opinion.

July 13th, 2016 at 9:36 am

maybe the “mandatory” element of 8 masters is the problem too MMT? maybe it should be just 5 or 6 so players would play other events and/or wouldn’t have to play masters? we might have more variance in title winners then.

“There is a whole cadre of players who have a lot of MS titles who’ve never won majors”

interesting history you’ve given MMT, because that’s not been the case in the fed-rafa-novak-murray era, really. in fact we have delpo and cilic with 1 slam each and no masters, and we have stan with 2 slams and i think (?) just 1 masters, which almost seems to suggest they have a tougher time winning masters! i can’t recall many other players, besides fed and rafa, winning many masters prior to novak’s first in 2007 and murray’s first in 2008. i do recall tsonga and berdych each winning a masters or 2, but they are the kind of players who can break through occasionally, so that’s not an anomaly really. roddick won some, but he was a slam winner too.

in any case, at least we haven’t had a situation like the WTA, wherein players who just played a lot of events were able to reach number 1. all of the number 1s on the men’s side have been slam champs (for years now i think).

“Djokovic is continuing to have one of the best years on record (despite his aberrant result at Wimbledon) in the history of the game, but Murray is within striking distance. That just doesn’t work for me”

it is surprising that with 2 slams and 3 masters novak doesn’t have #1 fairly secured. but andy did reach a lot of finals too, of AO, FO and madrid. so that adds to his points total.

maybe it’s the distribution of finals-semis-etc points is an issue for them to revisit as opposed to only masters, or as well as? i don’t know, honestly. 1200 for a slam final seems fair to me. not sure what players get for masters finals.

July 13th, 2016 at 9:52 am

del Potro and Cilic are really historical anomalies – the list in the reverse is much longer: Ljubicic, Davydenko, Correjta, Phillipousis, Mecir, Joachim Nystrom, Larry Stefanki…and that’s just Indian Wells – I’d do the rest of the events, but there’s 9 of them (currently) and a bunch that no longer exist, but a sample is as follows: Haas, Berdych, Guillermo Coria, Andriy Medvedev, Andrei Chesnokov, Alberto Mancini, Joachim Nystrom, Félix Mantilla, Magnus Norman, Emilio Sanchez, Jimmy Arias, Jose Luis Clerc, Roberto Carretero, Henri Leconte, Karel Novacek, Juan Aguilera, Tim Mayotte, Amos Mansdorf, Thomas Enqvist, Greg Rusedski, Tim Henman, Sebastien Grosjean, David Nalbandian, Tsonga, Soderling, Ferrer…

…again, I don’t want to belabor it, but it’s a very long list of non-major winning winners of the Masters or Super 9’s.

You referenced the big 4/5 era, but even in this period (say from 2004 – 2016) there are players with no majors in that period that found a way to win MS titles (although they may have won majors at other times) like JC Ferrero, Hewitt, Roddick, a young and profligate Andy Murray, etc.

I also agree that there is no reason why a player should be compelled to play the MS titles – without that, I guarantee most players would skip it, and I also suspect it’s one of the reasons why the results don’t convene with the majors as far the universe of players who’ve won those titles. After all, nobody is compelled to play the majors…they just do because they’re the majors. But the MS titles are mandatory, and as a result, players often show up with no interest in competing – the exception are these 3 double-digit major winners who are just uber-competitive – this too is an anomaly because the in the past the only time you got that kind of universal committment to compete, even from the top players, was at the majors (although some of these MS titles are 100+ years old).

July 13th, 2016 at 10:23 am

Jane @9.51am

Andy is only close to Nole (815pts.)in the Race to London category….which covers the Jan. 2016 to 11th July 2016 period. As you know only 8 will qualify (+ 2 replacements if necessary).

Nole got 2,000 for Aussie GS + 2,000 FO + Masters points = 8,040 Singles Race.
Andy got 2,000 For Wimb. + 2,400 Finalist Aussie & FO + Masters points = 7,225 Singles Race. Thus the 815 difference others are referring to.

It is the yearly Singles figures where there is a significant difference: Nole has 15,040 and Andy has 10,195. Nole leads by 5,845 points.

July 13th, 2016 at 12:51 pm