Well its been quite a while since my last tennis post but I thought I would post up something about Andy Murray and his recent form since his return to the tour after having back surgery last year. So let's have a look at how the British No.1 has been faring....
Well so far 2014 has been far from kind for Andy Murray with him having lost Ivan Lendl as his coach it has left a big gap to fill in his career and he is already keen to find a replacement pretty quick and has said he would ideally like to have someone in place by the time the French Open starts. However given that it is now only two weeks until the French open begins it appears rather unlikely that Andy will be able to get a coach in place before it begins, especially as he himself has said its not ideal to hire a new coach just a few days before the beginning of a grand slam and he would rather spend time with the coach before diving head first into a major.
So this leaves open the strong possibility that Andy will go into the French open without a coach, which is in itself a worrying sign given his recent form, having sustained one of his worst defeats of the season just there at the Mutua Madrid open against Santiago Giraldo who beat Andy emphatically in 6-3, 6-2. And only two years ago this was a player Andy dismissed at the French open in straight sets, where the Colombian failed to even convert a single break point. However times change and players improve as Giraldo has done that this year and there are also so many others players emerging to step up and challenge the "big four" which is now starting to dimish in strength. Andy himself is now ranked lower than he has for almost six years as his ranking sunk to No.8 in the world, which could be worse, but he doesn't want to sink any lower otherwise he will be facing some of the top players even earlier in the tournament, such as facing Rafa in the 3rd round of the French, which isn't very encouraging!
And it has to be said that with Lendl now gone there is a big vaccum that needs to be filled and even Andy himself has said that he feels he has lost direction and motivation since his former coach has departed. And when Lendl left it appears he took the mental edge he has given Andy with him, as we no longer now see a confident self assured fighter out on court, instead we have a man who doubts himself, and plays well one day and terrible the next. And its this lack of consistency more than anything else Andy needs to address, as its all good and well he could go on to do fairly well at the French and the other slams, but he needs to play more consistently throughout the season, which is something he has always struggled to do over the last few years in the ATP events. In the past Andy seemed to priortise winning events on the tour, while providing rather underwhelming results in the slams, but in recent years this has changed and it has become all about the majors, leaving himself short when it came to the ATP tour events. And this is something where the other "big three" have excelled in both the majors and the tour events, which in that regard is where Andy stands apart, he's more than good enough to be ranked along side them, but he just struggles to consistently string it togther. However since his return to the tour, his results on hard court so far haven't been too bad as he has reached three quarter finals at the Australian open, Rotterdam and Miami, and his best result was reaching the semi finals in Acapulco where he lost a very tight match to Grigor Dimitrov. And on clay its always been Andy's weakest surface where he has not performed his best particularly in Madrid having never gotten past the last eight ever since the event changed surface to clay.
However with Lendl gone, Andy certainly won't have a shortage of candidates to take over as his new coach and one of them being John McEnroe, who potentially could be an excellent choice for Andy to go with, although its ironic that his next coach could be one of his former coach's biggest rivals! But its all a case of how good a fit would McEnroe be for Andy and will they partner up and then split just after a few weeks??? Who knows? Andy needs to be certain as he very well knows, that he can get a coach that can fully commit to his busy schedule, which was something as time moved on that Lendl wasn't able to do, which possibly was in part one of the reasons Lendl chose to leave. Although it does appear ironic that Lendl said one of the reasons he chose to move on was to play more on the seniors tour, which in itself is bizzare as McEnroe, who has expressed interest in coaching Andy, already plays alot on the seniors tour, yet he is willing to take the time to coach Andy as well! This makes me think that Lendl's decision to leave in regards to playing more on the seniors tour is nothing but hot air and there were other reasons behind his departure.
What I do think though was Lendl timed the split badly just as Andy was heading into the Sony Open in Miami, where he was the defending champion, which no doubt left him feel dispirited. Regardless of that though he put in a decent performance in reaching the quarter finals and played a pretty good match against Novak Djokovic, which saw him produce some of his best form we had seen since he won Wimbledon the year before. But since then Andy Murray looks like a man who has no plan and without a coach he has lost his sense of direction and motivation and that is something that needs to address very quickly otherwise we could be looking at Andy making early exits at Queens and Wimbledon, which is something he will want to avoid at all costs. And while Andy will want to make the right decision and get the right person for the job, which is the right thing to do, the longer he goes without a coach, he will have more chances of stringing together a series of bad results, which is the last thing he will want to do.
But I'm sure that Andy will one day get back to his best form, if not at some point this season, then surely in the future he will get there. Its been a tough time for him of late, not only with the depature of Lendl but also the tragic death of Elena Baltacha, a close personal family friend and his comeback to the tour could not be more different than Rafa's last year, but every player is different. In the meantime with Rome and the French open ahead, Andy has no points to defend and he stands to gain points, so that's one encouraging thing that he has nothing to lose in either tournament and hopefully he can gain some if not in Rome then at Roland Garros, which he really needs to do. And Andy could potentially face Marcel Granollers in his first match in Rome, whom he faced last year in his only match there and he was forced to retire due to his back injury. And if is Andy is fortunate enough to beat either player then he could go on to face Santiago Giraldo again in the 3rd round which is not an enviable prospect, either that or play Jurgen Mezler or Marin Cilic. Either way its not looking very promising for Andy in Rome either, but we will wait and see how his form is once he get's there. And should he be lucky to reach the quarter finals then he could play Rafa, but given they haven't played for almost three years, it looks like at this rate their much anticipated match up is going to have to wait a bit longer. (Update 12.05) In fact we now know it will be Marcel Granollers that Andy will play after all in Rome this year, so it will be a rematch and not an enviable one, so let's hope Andy is up to the task, because it won't be easy.
So I will leave it there and let's hope Andy Murray can recover his form soon and that he get's the right person for his new coach.
And I will return with more posts once the French Open get's under way, in fact I will probably do a French open preview for the men and ladies with my pick of favourites to win the title.
Till then bye for now.
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