Andy Murray end Djokovic’s reign
View(s):Great Britain’s Andy Murray of Scottish origin took the world’s number one position dethroning Serbian Novak Djokovic’s 122 week month reign in Tennis. While the best of women were fighting it out in Singapore last week, performances of Djokovic suffered in Shanghai and in Paris. Andy Murray on the other hand excelled in these and in two more. Last week, the crown fell onto Murray’s lap even without playing Djokovic once as Djokovic did not survive long enough in the draws to play Murray in final rounds.
The last Englishman to take British Tennis to these heights was the legendary Fred Perry as far back as the 1930s, a good seventy years ago. Murray’s achievements will echo for decades to come. He has won Wimbledon, Gold in Olympics, brought the Davis Cup home and now he is number one in the prestigious ATP rankings. His mother, Judy Murray who played a pivotal role in his life, was always confident that Andy would be number one in the world one day and that day has come. At 29 Murray is the oldest to join the exclusive number one club of 26 players but it has been a long and a very hard road for him and his family. The last prominent player from Great Britain was Tim Henman about a decade ago. Before that Mike Sangster with his ‘sledge hammer’ serve and Rod Taylor were the British hopes for the Wimbledon crown, a few decades ago.
Murray’s 2016
During this year’s late season, Murray won a string of four titles – Beijing, Shanghai, Vienna and Paris last week. Murray weighs 183 pounds and stands six foot three inches. To date he has 42 tour level titles, he recorded 73 wins and 9 losses and earned 11 million dollars as prize money this year. The accumulation of 11185 points in the ATP ranking this year placed Murray 405 points ahead of Djokovic into the number one spot. It is still very marginal. If one thinks that getting up there is tough, we have to be reminded that staying at the top is even tougher. I feel Murray has the grit and commitment to hold it for a good length of time.
Murray’s winning formula
I have seen Murray turning every shot he has into a weapon to hit winners. This is magical in Tennis. His tactical virtue to wait for the right instant to hit a winner comes from his canny ability to read the opponents ever so correctly. This kept improving ever since he became a professional player in 2005. Now it is a fine tuned repertoire which reduces his unforced error rate. It is certainly one of his secrets of success. His most treasured virtue is tactical patience. He can patiently absorb an untold amount of punishment and sustain his hard hitting, counter punching game till the opponents break down. He has done this time and time again.
The shot angles Murray chooses in very tight situations, such as his running forehand passing shot, is a clear indication of the instinctive sensing of the court-geometry to be very accurate. In Tennis, players have to sight the ball and ‘sense’ the court. There is no choice here because of the speed at which the ball travels. In tight situations the sense of court geometry Murray exhibits amazes me.
We have all seen Murray hitting unbelievable winners with his service, forehand, backhand, volley, drop shot, smash and startling return of serves. Making the back of the court as his home, he covers court at a speed that takes away the comfort zone of opponents. Murray’s formula to win involves a lot of labour and is not easy but he has mastered it to great perfection. These are the reasons why he is world’s number one today. His present Coach Ivan Lendl did very much the same in his time to reach the top.
Djokovic shaken by Wawrinka?
The loss of Djokovic that signaled the tide change was that of the 2015 French-Open finals to Switzerland’s Wawrinka. Ever since then Djokovic’s performance has been shaky on and off. True, he did win some majors this year but also registered most number of defeats. It is this trend that made many to predict correctly that the world’s number one position will change.
Djokovic game at his best was beautiful and effective. His large support team could not change anything this year and probably became a burden to carry. He had the worst late season in 2016 but he is certainly not a ‘spent force’ by any means and is capable of bouncing back. All he needs is to get his mindset back and reduce the luggage.
ATP Masters – London
From 13 November London will host the ATP-Masters. The eight confirmed are Murray, Djokovic, Wawrinka, Canadian Milos Raonic, France’s Gael Monfils, Japan’s Kei Nishikori, Croatian Marin Cilic and Austria’s David Thiem. Rafael Nadal the 8th ranked who announced that he will not play till 2017 gave Thiem the slot. This would be the first time in years that Federer and Nadal are absent. The format of round robin and followed by knock out semi finals and a seven and a half million dollar prize money will provide memorable Tennis to watch.
George Paldano, Former intl. player; Accredited Coach of Germany;
National, Davis-Cup,
Federation Cup captain/coach–
georgepaldano@yahoo.com