Disappointed, but if I'd been told he'd make the AO final at the start of the year I would've been thrilled :shrug: He's played far better than I think any of us expected and is now back in the top 4. Sadly it looks like the AO is always going to be the one that got away, but it's easy to forget how bad things were last year.
I'm sad this place is dead. I'll admit, as a bad fan, but a prescient one, I skipped the final after Murray got down in the very early in the 1st set. As it was on super late here, i had fairly legitimate excuse, but if I'm being honest with myself I would have stayed up until 4am to see him finally win Australia, i just knew deep down that he wouldn't.
So what exactly happened. Was it a case of Murray running out of gas, or frustration meltdown? Or djokovic finding a new gear/wind/egg?
I thought it was one of those times where something annoys him, and he has a completely disproportionate reaction which destroys his game and loses the match. A very disappointing end to what was a great tournament. Though I'll say this much for him - people didn't give Novak the credit he deserved for set 4, he was hitting the lines with everything.
Bit alarmed by today's defeat to be honest. So much for trying to do better in tour events this year. Really, really bad performance. I suppose there were some warning signs against Pospisil but nothing to suggest anything like today's performance, it was horrific.
Definitely one of Murray's worst ever defeats. Seemed to be showing promise in Australia but even 2014ray wouldn't have lost to Simon or Coric . In fairness it must be hard to get motivated for Rotterdam and Dubai - both of which are pretty dire tournaments.
IW is a sucking ground for Murray but I'm hoping for a good result in Miami, time to actually do well in a m1000 Andy.
Indian Wells is definitely one to dread. Played well in Miami last year, and that was the first of the defeats to Djoker. As I remember, it was very tight and Andy was actually playing the better tennis... until that point, following which he lost his head. Really disappointing. I wonder what he might've achieved in his career if he'd had more ability to just let things go in a match.
He really needs to sort out his coaching situation. Said on GM, I was thinking it could go badly wrong in Rotterdam/Dubai when I heard he had practically no one travelling with him. Didn't think it could go quite as badly as it did though.
Though regarding the 'tank' word, I didn't realise it was Davis Cup next week. I'm starting to wonder how much effort he actually put into this Coric match now. Possibly didn't much fancy facing Fed in the SFs and wanted to get back home for the DC? Just doesn't seem to make much sense otherwise. Assured and quality play against Muller & Sousa, then not able to put a ball in court and seemingly not even angry about it? And winning 5 points on return against a guy who hasn't even got much of a serve?
If Djoker fans can claim tank in a 3 set tie-breaky affair against Karlovic, we can claim tank in a 6-3 6-1 loss against a teenager, while rocking a cool 50 unforced errors.
Nishikori seems to be playing in a different 250/500 event every week, so he's probably got a lot of non-mandatory events stacked up. So he will earn points with wins, but they just won't count because the results making up his ranking are filled with 250/500 events. Murray also has a win over Fognini from last year which will give him a higher Davis Cup total, I'm guessing Nishikori doesn't have anything beyond the first round.
I think Indian Wells is nowadays possibly his worst tournament on the tour, so I see a lot of potentially dangerous opponents. Most of them seem badly out of form (Kohlschreiber, Gulbis), but Andy's level has been so hilariously bad at IW in the past few years that I could conceivably see anyone beating him. Don't think it's a particularly kind draw though.
Let's not get dejected yet. Got to the SF of IW, which is a shocking achievement in and of itself considering his history there.
Think Murray's progressing well. He'll figure out a way through the brick wall eventually. I'd like to see more net approaches when Djokovic has to use gymnastics in order to get a ball back. Even if he gets burned once in a while, it'll give that guy more to think about. He's too comfortable dealing with Murray's aggression at the moment.
True, two big events so far: final in the slam, SF in the Masters - I would've taken that. But it's so disheartening to see how he plays the top guys now. This is a guy in Murray that was working out how he'd beat the best in the game as a scrawny 18 year old. He believed he could do it and he did do it. Now it's like he's just lost the belief, despite being a two-time slam winner and an Olympic champion. And not to mention, very recently he was leading in the third set of a slam final on Novak's favourite court.. yet he seemed to admit defeat within about 10 points yesterday.
I really didn't expect him to win yesterday and I honestly wouldn't have been that disappointed if he'd gone down, say, 7-6, 6-4. Novak is just too good on those courts, even when Andy got his shit together in the second set, Novak was still defending everything. But Andy pretty much donated it from the start of each set, I can't believe the way he strings errors together at times, just horrible viewing. And it's worrying because Djokovic is going nowhere, he'll be in the final stages of events for years to come.
Will add that I suppose the bright side is how well he's played at times this year. Some of that stuff in the Australian Open was breathtaking. It's nice to know he's still got that, there were a few times last year where I was seriously starting to think a continuous slide down the rankings was inevitable.
I didn't watch yesterday because I knew it would be a blood bath, but Djokovic today against final looks so nervy and unsure of himself in the second set. I'm all the more disappointed in yesterday's scoreline given this- but maybe Nole just relaxes against Andy because he knows donated games are a given?
As I said in the results thread Djokovic has a remarkable inability to put Federer away easily, even when utterly outplaying him.
The Murray-Djokovic match-up has stopped being competitive due to mainly two things imo...
1. A role reversal of sorts on the first serve. Murray used to be the guy who occasionally got a cheap point on his first serve in this match-up. Look at the stats for the Wimbledon'13 final, they are all pretty similar except Murray won 71% FS points to Djokovic's 58%. Nowadays Djokovic has the better first serve of the two with great placement and variety. Murray's heavy, borderline unreturnable 130mph deliveries have unfortunately become something of a rarity since the surgery.
2. Murray's general physical decline/losing half a step in the rallies. Murray used to give Djokovic nightmares in long rallies and was pretty much the only player other than Nadal who could match him from the baseline. Now Djokovic is perfectly happy to trade from the back of the court because he knows that 90% of the time Andy will inevitably hit a BH long or net a FH.
Due to these factors Djokovic simply has to wait for the random appearances of No-serve-ray and play it safe in the rallies.
Don't get me wrong, there is no shame in losing to Djokovic - after all the guy looks set to pretty much clean up this year. However the manner of these defeats is becoming really concerning for Murray fans since he doesn't seem to be changing anything tactically in the match-up. By my count it's something like 2-14 in sets since the surgery, the 2 sets won being second set TBs in slam matches... which means Murray has never had a lead or been within a set of beating Djokovic since the Wimbledon final. I might be wrong but I can't remember Murray even consolidating a break of serve (by which I mean he is always broken straight back after breaking Djokovic's serve) as we saw a number of times in the AO final recently.
Due to his ranking it is fairly unlikely he'll ever get to play Crapovic in the near future. So the only scenarios in which I can see Murray winning one of these encounters are
1. Boosted by home support he wins again in Wimbledon. I think most would agree that despite having only the single Wimbledon title Murray is still the more natural grass player. Djokovic is also well known for playing poorly when the crowd is firmly behind his opponent.
2. A near flawless performance from Murray. 80+% FS in, very low unforced error count etc... trouble is Murray really seems to struggle to bring his best against the top guys these days.
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