Ooooooooh dear oh dear, its a pity to start a tennis post (yup another!) with some bad news, but I have to say that it appears to be habitual that every year that the British No.1, Andy Murray, always seems to suffer a slump, and right now, he is suffering it.
At the start of the grass court season, Andy came into the AEGON Championships at Queens club as the defending champion, and he had a tough opponent for his first match in the second round, Nicholas Mahut, who is an excellent grass court player. And in this match he proved just why he is, as Mahut quickly took to Andy and broke him in the first set, and held onto his own to take the first set. In the second set however, Andy held serve better and pushed the match to a 2nd set tiebreak, which he won to take it into a decider. In the decider, Andy had an immediate break on Mahut's serve, but he was broken straight back by the Frenchman. Play went by serve until the deciding tiebreak where Mahut turned on the turbo and overpowered Andy and went to a 6-0 lead, with Andy only managing one feeble point on serve, and after this Mahut served out for a big upset with the No.1 seed and defending being put out, with the scoreline reading 6-3, 6-7, 7-6.
This was far from the best start to Andy's grass court season, and also as he was the defending champion of the title, it was a big disappointment to see him go out so early on in the tournament. But Mahut was the better player it has to be said, as he played aggressive and held serve well, as did Andy in the key service games, but the fact he played such a poor tiebreak in the 3rd set, just leaves you puzzled as to what is going on with him. It was in all fairness a very tough first match and a very tough first round opponent and its not like in the grand slams where you can start with lower ranked players and ease into the matches. But when you look at the top 3, especially Federer who had a real tough match against Mahut in the French Open, you know they will find a way to win, but Andy just doesn't seem to have that ability at times, especially in the ATP tour matches, and the best of 3 sets.
It also makes you wonder just what Ivan Lendl, his new coach is actually doing with him and what advice he is giving him, as whatever it is, it isn't translating well into his game and match play. From what I gather Lendl was trying to help Andy with the mental side of the game, but so far Andy has reverted back to type, still berating himself on court and playing too passively. But its another setback from the great progress he made at the beginning of the year in Melbourne and even in Dubai and reaching the final in Miami. But in the end even Ivan Lendl probably has to realise that he is dealing with Andy Murray, and just maybe there isn't any changing him, but it also makes you wonder what they must be saying to each other just now. I also wonder if Ivan Lendl will be good for Andy in the long term??? As so far things don't seem to be going Andy's way, although they have just been working together over the last six months, so you can't expect miracles to happen overnight, it may take another year or two to get the benefit of Lendl's coaching.
However in his post match press conference Andy did say he wasn't overly worried that he lost the match, as it was very close, which it was, and it wasn't like he was blown off the court. And while it is far from the perfect preparation for Wimbledon to go out so early, it doesn't mean Andy won't have his chances at Wimbledon. But he does need to ensure that he can get more match play in before the next slam at SW19 starts, and there is talk that he might play a couple of exhibition matches (let's hope he doesn't lose them!). And in the grand slams so far this year, he has done very well in Melbourne and fairly well in Paris, so hopefully Andy will raise his game for when he plays at Wimbledon. Also in the best of 5 sets, grand slams can be that bit more forgiving and it has to be said that Andy is a bit of a slow starter in matches, so if he goes a set down, he still has those two extra sets to get back in the game. And as for the AEGON Championships at Queens, Andy Murray wasn't the only one to go out in the top seeds, Andy Roddick went out today to another Frenchman, Eduard Roger-Vasselin, and Gilles Simon was stunned by the Italian player, Simon Bolleli. So you are never alone.
But despite another setback in his season, I'm fairly sure that he will perform much better at Wimbledon (well he better!) as he has done so for the past three years. Even in 2010 when he had one of his worst seasons, he still managed to reach the semi finals of Wimbledon and played a pretty decent match against Rafa in the semis before losing out in a tight straight set defeat, 6-4, 7-6 (8-6), 6-4. However I'm still not convinced that Andy will win Wimbledon at all, but you would expect him to at least reach the quarter finals or the semis. So I will wish the best of luck for SW19 and hope he can at least reach another semi final.
Right that's it for now!
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