ANDY MURRAY CLOSE AGAIN, BUT NOVAK DJOKOVIC BEATS HIM AGAIN! RICKY DIMON REPORTS FROM PARIS TENNIS

Murray close again, but Djokovic silences him once more at finish line

 

Nothing will ever change the fact that Andy Murray’s greatest triumphs have come at the expense of Novak Djokovic. Murray beat his familiar foe for each of his two Grand Slam titles, at the 2012 U.S. Open and at Wimbledon in 2013.

 

Since that memorable July day in Great Britain two years ago, however, the story has been remarkably one-sided. In fact, Djokovic’s 6-3, 6-3, 5-7, 5-7, 6-1 victory in the French Open semifinals on Saturday was his eighth in a row over Murray. And he has put the beatdown on the Scot all over everywhere; from Miami to New York to Beijing to Australia to the California desert and to Paris.

 

There is, of course, no shame in losing to Djokovic these days. He is the world No. 1 with room to spare and is one win away from holding three of the four Grand Slam trophies (Wimbledon, the Australian Open, and the French Open). He is 41-2 this season and is riding a 28-match winning streak.

 

But what is disturbing for Murray in this head-to-head series is a recent disappearance late in matches. In the 2014 U.S. Open quarterfinals, they split the first two sets in tiebreakers before Djokovic coasted through the third and fourth 6-2, 6-4. They did the same in frames one and two earlier this season in Melbourne, where Djokovic promptly crushed Murray 6-3, 6-0. The world No. 3 also accept a bagel two months later in Miami, where the title all came down to one set and Djokovic made a 6-0 mockery of it.

 

More of the same continued at Roland Garros even though this one had the makings of so much more. Murray stormed back from a two-set deficit to take the third on Friday evening and force an extra day of play after the contest was halted at 3-3 in the fourth. The underdog came back out in scintillating form, basically refusing to miss a ball throughout the remainder of set four. Djokovic ultimately cracked at 5-5 before Murray served it out in style.

 

Again, though, promise gave way to pain–both for Murray and tennis fans. The fifth fizzled, as the third seed won a horrendous 55 percent of his first-serve points, just 20 percent of his second-serve points, and struck a mere two winners during the decider.

 

“I played a loose game on my serve the first game of the fifth set with the new balls,” Murray reflected. “I missed I think three balls long in that game. Then Novak relaxed a little bit after that and he hit the ball extremely accurate. In the fifth set he was hitting the ball very close to the line, so I ended up doing a lot of defending.”

 

“It was a really tough match, over four hours all together, yesterday and today,” Djokovic said. “No different from any other match that we played against each other. It’s always a thriller; always a marathon.”

 

And it always has the same outcome.

 

Ricky contributes to 10sballs.com and also maintains his own tennis website, The Grandstand.

 

 

Topics: Andy Murray, French Open Tennis, Men's Semi-Finals, Novak Djokovic, Paris, RG2015, Ricky Dimon, Roland Garros, Tennis

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