No walk in the park for Andy Murray

Written by: Staff on 25th August 2012

No walk in the park for Andy Murray

epa03369870 Andy Murray (R) of Britain signs autographs for children at the US Open Tennis Center on Kids Day in New York, USA, 25 August 2012. EPA/PETER FOLEY |

“A champion is afraid of losing, everyone else is afraid of winning” Billie Jean King.

Defending champion Novak Djokovic has a point to prove this summer at Flushing Meadows. Following up his incredible 2011 season was never going to be easy – but he’ll be disappointed with the way the last two tournaments have gone for him. Semi-final losses to Roger Federer at Wimbledon and Andy Murray at the Olympics will have hurt him, so expect less “Djoking” about and more shirt-ripping focus from the Serb.

The mark of a champion, it is often said, is the ability to win when playing badly. Djokovic will be there or thereabouts at the end of the tournament, and it’s hard to look at his side of the draw without visualising him in the final. All things going well, it’ll be the quarter finals before he meets anyone seeded in the top ten – Argentines Juan Monaco (10) or Juan Martin Del Potro (7) are the other top seeds in that part of the draw. Del Potro as an opponent would provide a chance for some vindication for Djokovic, as it was he who denied Djokovic a Bronze in the third place play-off at the London 2012 Olympics.

With Rafa Nadal having withdrawn from tournaments indefinitely, Andy Murray had better get used to being the most-watched name on the day the draws are made. 3^rd seeds are the traditional spanner in the works at tournaments. The first and second seeds are of course placed at opposite ends of the pyramid – a path plotted out to the final for each of them. So on the 23^rd of August, everyone was looking to see whose side of the draw Andy Murray would come out on – Federer’s or Djokovic’s. Perhaps one of the least concerned people would’ve been Andy himself. He’s just proven to everyone, including Djokovic and Federer and most importantly himself, that he can defeat the world number 1 & 2 back to back, and is now more a threat than ever on the grand stage. He knows that whatever side of the draw he came out in, barring any shocks, he’d have to do the same again – only the order was still to be determined. What he will have been more interested in is his own route to the semi-final stage, and it’s not an easy one. His first round opponent Alex Bogomolov Jr shouldn’t be too much of a hurdle to clear, and the second round looks fairly straight forward too, but potential third and fourth round matches against Feliciano Lopez (I bet Judy has already picked an outfit out for that one) and then big serving North American Milos Raonic simply scream banana-skin, and if he negotiates that chicane it’s big J-W Tsonga in the quarters.

So, the withdrawal of Rafa Nadal might have weakened the field, but it’s no frolic through the meadows for Andy Murray at the US Open. But one thing is for certain, after his London 2012 heroics, Olympic Champion Andy Murray is not afraid of winning any more, he’s ready.

Topics: American tennis news, Andy Murray, Billie Jean King, British tennis news, milos raonic, Murray, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Sports, Tennis News, Tom Nash, US Open 2012