Well OK here's another tennis post although this one isn't about a tournament as such as it is more about the comeback of Andy Murray to the tennis tour in 2014. And there has been alot of speculation as to how Andy would come back from his back surgery from last year, with his last match being an impressive victory for Great Britain in the Davis cup last September, which secured their place in the World Group.
And with Andy making his return to the tour season this year, there was alot of surmising as to whether Andy could make the amazing comeback that Rafa did. Rafa who was out for 7 months with a knee injury came back in 2013 stronger than ever and he won 10 titles, which included 2 grand slams at the French and the US Open and as well as 5 Masters titles and he put together an incredible 22 match winning streak on hard courts, which marked his best ever hard court season. However Andy's comeback has been quite different from Rafa's and it has been much slower in progress, as Rafa sprung back into action pretty fast and enjoyed great success, Andy has had much the opposite.
At the start of the season Andy returned in Doha as he struggled to get anything going there and he fell to Florian Mayer in the 2nd second in 3 sets. Admittedly Andy looked a step slow and he was said to have been a bit sore after the surgery and he needed to give himself time to get more in shape. However when the Australian open came around, expectations were raised higher as Andy looked to try and win his maiden title down under. But ultimately Andy came undone against Roger Federer as he lost to him in the quarter finals after battling over four sets. Now this given the fact Andy had just returned to the tour was quite impressive and Andy made a brave fightback in the 3rd set, having gone two sets and a break down, he somehow managed to dig deep enough to claw his way back into the match and take only his second ever tiebreak off Federer to nab the set. Andy also continued to fight hard in the 4th set but ultimately all Rog had to do was wear Andy done and he did just that in the end. Despite that though there were still plenty of positives for Andy to take from Melbourne despite his loss, he still managed to make the last eight and that was a good effort in itself.
Next up Andy played in the Davis cup as Great Britain faced the stern test of taking on the USA on their homeland in San Diego. And the Yanks who were keen to try and derail Andy by playing the tie on clay, his weakest surface, in the end backfired as Andy came through the tie in fine style as he trounced Donald Young in straight sets in the first round rubber, and James Ward upset the odds and defeated the US No.1, Sam Querrey in five sets to take the 2-0 lead. The Bryan Brothers kept the Americans hopes all alive by winning the doubles, but Andy then fought his way past Sam Querrey in four sets to clinch the tie for Great Britain. It signalled that Andy's form was starting to return and he looked to be in good shape for the remaining season.
After this Andy decided to accept a wildcard for ATP tour event in Rotterdam, where he wanted to try and gain some ranking points and get some more matches under his belt. Andy however has always been a bit up and down on the ATP tour events, but he did make a solid start in his first round match against Eduardo Roger-Vasselin of France, as he dismissed the Frenchman in straight sets 6-3, 6-3. In the second round, Andy had a much tougher test ahead of him as he battled it out against the rising star, Dominic Thiem of Austria. Andy made a good start going 3-0 up but Thiem soon battled back and reduced the deficit to one break in the 1st set, but Andy still closed it out. In the 2nd set Thiem however made his move and broke Andy with some relentless and aggressive tennis and he went on to serve out the set. In the 3rd set however, Andy managed to regroup and broke the young Austrian to move ahead, but Thiem was still not yet done as he fought hard to keep it to other single break. In the end however Andy managed to hold on and her served it out for reach the quarter finals after a hard fought 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 victory. After this though, Andy faced the big Croat, Marin Cilic, who was in great form and in the match Andy struggled to hold his serve as he was broken once per set and from there Cilic held his own to grab his second career win against Andy in 6-3, 6-4.
This was a pretty disappointing loss for Andy no doubt as not only did it see him make an unexpected exit to Cilic, it also saw his ranking drop further from No.6 to No.7 as Tomas Berdych went on to win the title, replacing Andy as No.6. However despite that, the season is far from over and it has to be expected that Andy's comeback will take time for him to get back to his best and a back injury is quite different from a knee injury such as Rafa's. The danger though for Andy is he doesn't want his ranking to slip too far as he may see himself fall out of the top ten before long and that is where he doesn't want to be as he will be forced to play the top players earlier on in the big events, which will not be good for his chances. And with the American hard court swing coming up, Andy has alot of points to defend at Indian wells where he reached the quarter finals last year and he won the title in Miami. And if he takes a hit on points there then his ranking will drop again.
However Andy still can make up any potential shortfall when he reaches the clay court season and he has already shown encouraging signs on the red dirt in the Davis cup. But he will need to maintain that sort of form to have any chance against the best players on clay. In the meantime however, Andy has another tournament coming up at the Mexican open next week, so he will again have a chance to gain more points there and hopefully he will have a good chance of going deep into the tournament, where he could face David Ferrer in the final as he will be the No.1 seed there. But Andy still has a lot of work ahead of him before he can get there, but should he win the title there, it will show encouraging signs that his comeback really is started to get going.
And Andy has said himself that he can take positives out of his performance so far on the tour, as he has played three nights in a row in Rotterdam, which shows his body is holding up fairly well to the demands of the tour. But Andy still needs to improve alot more before he can come close to winning a title again, but hopefully that won't be too far away. Just how the rest of 2014 will pan out for him remains to be seen, but we can hope that once he is back to 100 percent fitness, he will get back up to the top of the rankings.
So I shall leave it there for now and be back soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment