Right OK this is a slightly different post on the tennis blog as this one will cover a certain problem that a certain British tennis player is having with a certain other tennis player. And to get to the point I'm refering to Andy Murray's losing streak to Novak Djokovic as he has now lost six matches in a row to the world no.1 so I thought I batter out some of my thoughts on it (bit pointless maybe but its fun to do, well in a way!).
Well to start Andy as we all know hasn't beaten Djokovic since the Wimbledon 2013 final where Andy ended the 77 year wait for a British singles champion in the tournament and up until this year these two were 2-2 in their head to head with grand slam finals. In fact in 2012 when Ivan Lendl was Andy Murray's coach, Andy's rivalry with Djokovic was reborn and started to emerge as one of the fledgling great rivalries in the sport in which that year alone they played seven matches and Nole lead their head to head that year 4-3 but clearly from that result there was nothing in it in terms of their games. And in 2013 they both split their only two meetings as Novak won the Australian open final and of course Andy winning the aforementioned Wimbledon final. So just two years ago their rivalry was alive and kicking and couldn't have been closer as with Lendl's help, Andy was at last really competing at the same level as the other three.
But after Andy came back from his lower back surgery in 2014 to the tour things took a downturn as he struggled to beat any of the big three with the closest to victory out of them was when Andy took on Rafa in Rome clay Masters tournament and he lead in the 3rd set by a break before he lost his lead and then the match. But Andy has struggled to deal with Novak the most as out of the big three its his most prominent rivalry and one that for a year and a half had really caught fire but has since then it has largely been extinguished. Andy last year admitted that given the time he had been away from the tour due to his injury made him realise in his absence these players keep improving and he was forced to try and catch up but found he struggled to do so.
And just look at Andy's losses from last year up until this year starting with last year in Miami where Andy was the defending champion and he took on Novak in the quarter finals, he played a poor game on serve and lost the first set and then squandered the lead in the 2nd set to hand a straight set win to the Serb in 7-5, 6-3. After this Andy took on Novak in the US Open quarter final where he made an impressive start and pushed the Serb hard for two sets as they split the first two sets on a tiebreak, but in the 3rd set Andy started to tire and fatigue set in that ultimately saw him lose the match in four sets with a 7-6, 6-7, 6-2, 6-4 scoreline. After this Andy next faced Novak at the China Open semi final where again Andy had a chance to get back on even terms after losing the first set, he broke back in the 2nd only to yet again drop serve, which saw Novak serve out the match with a 6-3, 6-4 win. And his last match against Novak in 2014 was at the Paris masters quarter finals where Andy made a promising start in the opening set but again lost it on a break of serve and he was broken twice in the 2nd set, which saw the Serb topple him again in 7-5, 6-2.
Getting onto 2015, Andy reached the Australian open final where he took on Novak and he went into the final in great form and unlike Novak who went into the final with a few question marks around his in his semi final match against Stan Wawrinka, which tipped the scales slightly in favour of Andy winning the title. However yet again was undone in what was for the most part a pretty tight match up until the 4th set where Andy capitulated spectacularly on serve and he handed the victory to Djokovic who claimed his 5th title in Melbourne with a 7-6, 6-7, 6-3, 6-0 win. This loss clearly had a lingering effect on Andy's game as he went on to suffer a couple of listless defeats on the tour after that in Rotterdam and Dubai. But then Andy rediscovered his good form at Indian Wells in reaching the semi finals he took on Novak yet again in what he would have hoped would be sixth time lucky. But...... again Andy came up short and yet again his serve let him down badly at the beginning of both sets and with a player like Nole a break of serve is like money in the bank and he took it and ran over the finish line with his easiest won over Andy Murray since Miami 2007 with an emphatic 6-2, 6-3 result.
So this rivalry continues to become increasingly one-sided with Novak taking each match with growing ease particuarly in the Masters tournaments where Andy has failed to take a single set off Novak in Masters events since their epic Shanghai final in 2012! That's three years without a single set to Andy's name on the ATP tour events out with the grand slams where he has had a little more success in taking at least one set in every match they've played since their 2012 Australian Open semi final. This certainly shows that Andy has invested more time and effort in their grand slam encounters but as for their tour events its less than inspiring to see Andy come up short on so many occassions. And alot of this also again has to do with Andy's serve as he continually drops his serve against Novak in their matches and he simply cannot afford to do that against a player as consistent as Djokovic who in stark contrast very rarely drops his own and given any chance he will serve a match out at the first time of asking.
But I also thought that after Andy suffered his Australian Open defeat that when he faced Novak again in Indian Wells he appeared to freeze and hit a mental block as if that defeat is something he has struggled to get past although Andy said after the match this was not the case. However another thing to consider is also one man's loss is another's gain and that certainly is true for Novak and with each win against Andy he grows in confidence against him and it also helps that he just happens to be the world's best player. Novak is also no stranger to winning streaks and he's put a few together in his time most notably his 41 match streak in 2011, but Novak has also done this against players such as Tomas Berdych where he had won 11 consecutive matches against him before Berdych beat him again in Rome 2013. Then there is also Stan Wawrinka with whom Novak shares another intruiging and at times exciting rivalry and Novak went on a 14 match winning streak before Stan finally beat him last year at the Australian open. These sorts of stats aren't too encouraging for Andy who now standing at six matches lost in a row could easily fall foul of the same fate in going into double figures against Novak in his losing streak. And that is almost certainly something Andy will want to avoid. But further to Andy's latest defeat Djokovic also went on to take apart Roger Federer in the final of Indian Wells for the first set and a half he was unplayable before Roger broke back and pushed their match to a 3rd set. And this showed that in this case Andy really was up against the No.1 in the world and as he said himself after the match "it isn't just about me" which is a fair point.
However I think (and I might be very wrong!) Andy will at some stage will beat Djokovic this year and get his revenge over the World No.1 although I have to say I don't quite see it happening in the immediate future but Andy is certainly capable of it given the form he has shown so far 2015. And their next potential match will be at the Miami open which starts this week which sees Andy and Novak on the opposite sides of the draw so they could only face each other in the final should they both get there. Novak who is the defending champion is already the top favourite to win the title again this year and it has to be said if he does face Andy in the final, he will almost certainly be the winner so I don't see Andy toppling his old adversary on a hard court any time soon. However if they should face each other on grass then it might be a slightly different story where Andy has never lost to Novak in their previous two meetings on that surface, granted that was two years ago at Wimbledon and three years ago at the Olympics so things might be different this time round.
Another issue for Andy is just how effective has and will Amelie Mauresmo continue to be for him as a coach? As so far Andy has actually improved his form very well over the past few months with Mauresmo in his camp, he has reached another major final and he has also won 3 titles and got himself back in the top four so that in itself is quite impressive. But Andy has still not secured one single win over the top 3 guys since Mauresmo's tenure began and that still is some cause for concern in a way that if she can't give him that edge to beat the very best in the game then she might eventually outlive her usefulness in his camp. I personally don't think at this stage Mauresmo should go as she done some very good work with Andy and with his new recruitment of former world no.4 singles player, Jonas Bjorkman into the team, this might also help improve things for him, but it still remains to be seen just how that will play out.
In the meantime we will just have to wait and see how Andy continues to get on in his future encounters with Novak Djokovic and as it stands their head to head is 17-8 in Novak's favour, its just a question of when will we see that 8 change to 9. For Andy's sake let's hope its not too far away!
So that's it for now and I will be back some time in the near future with another tennis post.
Until the next one bye the now!
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