Hurricane Andy blows Dustin away

Written by: Staff on 3rd September 2010

Hurricane Andy blows Dustin away |

When it comes to weather, the Scots know a thing or two. The tiny country of my forefathers (anyone inserting a gag here will have to face the wrath of my mother – and that, believe me, is not what you want to deal with on a holiday weekend) is a land battered by wind, rain, hail, snow, sleet and storms. And that is just during the summer. So, when it comes to a hurricane bumbling about offshore, no Scot worth his salt is going to be worried.

So it was that Andy Murray blew into the third round of the US Open, whistling past Dustin Brown 7-5, 6-3, 6-0 and getting back to the locker room long before Hurricane Earl had made his presence felt. Keeping a watchful eye on both the dark clouds overhead and the unpredictable form of Brown in front of him, Murray was done and dusted in just 85 minutes.

In the old days, a time when Dame Timothy Henry Henman used to wobble about on the edge of the second week of a grand slam, he would describe the likes of Brown as “unorthodox yet effective”. This was usually because the unorthodox newcomer, a man who had barely laid sneaker on DecoTurf before, had just walloped the toothless tiger in straight sets. Henman’s was the failing forehand that launched a thousand careers.

But when Murray faced Brown, he took one look at the welting serve, the spanked forehand and the ridiculous number of drop shots and thought: “Unorthodox? Sure, but effective? Not a chance, pal”.

The match was pretty much decided in the first 39 minutes. During that time, Brown had clattered the ball for all he was worth, he had dropshotted like a mad man and he had escaped from a few tight corners with some huge serves. But he could not keep it going forever. As soon as Murray broke to take the first set, Brown’s challenge all but evaporated.

Skipping lightly to a 5-0 lead, Scotland’s finest was racing into the third round until he made a bit of a hash of serving for the second set. Not that it mattered, he was so far ahead by then that he only had to bide his time to get another chance and this time, he made no mistake. Collecting the last seven games of the match, he allowed Brown just nine points in 18 minutes it took to win the third set.

For Brown, it had all been something of an experience. Ranked 123 in the world, he had no experience of the big show courts at the major tournaments so 85 minutes running around the Arthur Ashe stadium with the world No.4 was an event in itself, despite the fact that he was absolutely walloped at the end of it.

“In the first set, I realised I was staying with him,” Brown said. “I was serving well, and especially my first serve. I was hitting the targets in the beginning. And even all of the rallies, as soon as I had a chance to go for my forehand, I actually did that pretty well in the beginning.

“Only thing is that he read my dropshots really well. I mean, I guess he got coached on that pretty well. As soon as I opened up the racquet to hit a dropshot, he was already inside the service line. So didn’t make any points on that at all in the beginning.”

Ah, yes: the coaching. Now that Murray has no official coach, he has surrounded himself with his mum, Judy, his best mate, Dani Vallverdu, and Alex Corretja, his “coaching consultant” from Team Murray. Of these three, it is Judy who can be seen at the courtside of every match featuring one her son’s potential opponents, and it is she who texts him handy hints and pointers should he wish to use them. As a shrewd assessor of tennis talent, there is not much that escapes Mrs Murray and she will have briefed her youngest fully on the number and quality of those dropshots.

Murray, meanwhile, went straight to the practise courts after the match and spent 20 minutes hitting with Corretja. After such a brief second round encounter, he wanted to iron out a few wrinkles. “There were probably only two rallies today over eight shots,” Murray said. “I just wanted to get a bit of rhythm going again.

“But I’d not seen him play before and he’s got a very fast service action so it probably took me about three games to read it. He started very flashy. I had to focus on making as many returns as possible and I didn’t give him any chances so it was good. But I did serve well today and that’s something that will be important later in the tournament.”

As for Hurricane Earl, Murray had barely noticed all the fuss. Allowing himself a little bit of a lie-in that morning, he wandered off to see his physio before he even thought to check on the weather. “I just had a look outside because I heard it wasn’t meant to rain,” he said. “But then I was told it wasn’t going to come till later in the afternoon, so I wasn’t too worried about it.”

In Scotland, rain is not so much a weather feature as a way of life so a bunch of dark clouds lurking on the horizon in Queens is not going to panic a Murray. They make ‘em tough in Dunblane, possibly just tough enough to win this year’s US Open, whatever the weather.

Topics: Andy Murray, Dark Clouds, Decoturf, Drop Shots, Forefathers, Forehand, Grand Slam, Holiday Weekend, Hurricane Earl, Locker Room, Mad Man, Rain Hail, Ridiculous Number, Sneaker, Snow Sleet, Straight Sets, Tight Corners, Tiny Country, Toothless Tiger, Watchful Eye