Murray’s New Attitude—Nathan’s Notice

Written by: on 2nd February 2012
Murray’s New Attitude—Nathan’s Notice  |

By: Nathan M. Cuny

Will Murray one day win a Grand Slam? After his semifinals performance against Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open, there’s little doubt and much hope that he one day will. In his semifinals match Murray lasted five whole sets for nearly five hours. In past Grand Slam finals matches Murray has strayed far from winning a single set. Although he did not make it to the finals, he did outperform the expectations many had of him for his match against Djokovic.

Andy Murray’s current win/loss record against Novak Djokovic is 4-7. He beat Djokovic in the 2011 and 2009 ATP World Masters 1000 Cincinnati, in the 2008 ATP Master’s Series Canada, and the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 Miami. What surprised many was the amount of spunk and the determined attitude Murray showed during the Australian Open semifinals match, even when the game wasn’t going his way.

Normally during Grand Slams Murray expresses all of his emotions, moaning and whining. However rather than allow his emotions to get the better of him, he got the better of them. When asked about his new attitude, Murray answered, “It was tough at the end ’cause obviously you come back, then you get close to breaking. To lose, yeah, it’s tough. But [I’m] a different player, [with] a different attitude to this time last year. I’m proud of the way I fought. Everybody matures at different ages and different rates. I feel now, I’m ready mentally. Physically I can still get better, for sure. But in comparison to how I played last year, it was much, much better.” I’m sure we can all agree Murray’s newfound maturity has a lot to do with his newest mentor and coach Ivan Lendl.

Andy Murray is a much more aggressive player than he used to be, which helped him win the second and third set of his Australian Open semifinals match. Rather than being passive and not going for shots Murray took a huge leap. With that leap he made many more mistakes than Djokovic but also dictated more of the points and hit more winners.

The only criticism Murray has faced since his semifinals clash with Djokovic is the need to play with more Momentum, like Djokovic and Nadal. In order to do that Murray needs to break his bad habit of playing the scoreboard, or in other words slacking off when the board tells him he’s doing good. After winning two sets in a row at the Australian Open Murray Lost his momentum by the start of the fourth. Even Rafael Nadal had a few words of wisdom for Murray, advising, “To win a tournament like this and to play against a player like Djokovic, you cannot start the fourth set like this. It’s the moment to play with more intensity than ever, not start with 3-0 down and two breaks in five minutes. That way you lose the match.”  With time, and loads of practice with his new coach Ivan Lendl, Murray will build the momentum to overcome guys like Djokovic, and the focus to ignore the scoreboard.

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