Well this is the last post to cover Andy Murray's year that has been 2014 and its been a very difficult one for him overall as he has had some tough obstacles to overcome with returning from back surgery and also splitting with his coach Ivan Lendl, who lead him to his first grand slam success. So let's give another look at how Andy has been doing which takes us up to the end of his season at the ATP world tour finals in London.
So starting with the BNP Paribas Masters tournament in Paris, where Andy competed to try and seal his place in the top 8 for the ATP world tour finals in London. And the British No.1 got off to an excellent start there as he defeated the Frenchman, Julienne Benneteau in 6-3, 6-4 to put him within one match from qualifying for the o2. And that match was on paper a very tough one as he took on Grigor Dimitrov who handed him a pretty heavy loss at Wimbledon, but Andy ended up getting his sweet revenge over the young Bulgarian as he dismissed him with one of his best performances of the year in 6-3, 6-3, which saw him qualify in 5th place for the world tour finals. After this Andy next faced off against Novak Djokovic in their 4th meeting of the season, which given Andy's form promised to be a real cracker. However despite a tight first set, Andy dropped his serve to give Novak the set and in the 2nd set Andy suffered lapses of concentration again and went down a double break to hand the match to the Serb who won 7-5, 6-2. This saw Andy's lengthy six week run on the tour come to an end and gave him a much needed rest and a week off before the world tour finals would begin.
Now we get onto the ATP world tour finals itself and Andy's match started with him taking on the US Open finalist, Kei Nishikori in a promising opening clash for the tournament. Andy had won all three of their previous encounters all with Andy winning in straight sets, and it looked to be heading that way again at the start of the first set as Andy secured a break. However in typical fashion, Andy surrendered the break and it went to 3-3 and before we knew Andy was broken by Nishikori at 5-4 and the Japanese player took the first set. In the 2nd set, Andy dented his chances in the tournament further as he dropped his serve early on and Kei lead with the brea, but Andy then revitalised his chances as he broke back to go 4-4. But again Andy surrendered serve in the same way and let Nishikori grab a somewhat unexpected victory, his first over Andy with a 6-4, 6-4 win. This certainly wasn't the start Andy was looking for in the tournament as he looked pretty flat and tired from the offset with only one or two sparks here and there, but he looked well below the man he was during his successful six week trot in Asia and Europe. It also saw Andy's chances of staying in the tournament reduce somewhat as he would now need to win his next match to guarantee that he would stay in.
And this match was an unenviable match up with Milos Raonic, the big serving Canadian who Andy trailed in their head to head 1-3 going into this event. But knowing what was at steak Andy raised his game and went out and played a solid match against Raonic, who's main weapon (i.e. his serve) was misfiring and he struggled to get it working, which allowed Andy to break him and take the first set. In the 2nd set, things got a bit more competitive as Raonic went down a break but immediately broke back and he held his serve but at 5-5 he was broken again and Andy went on to serve out the match to keep his hopes alive for qualifying to reach the semis with a vital 6-3, 7-5 win. There was no doubt this was a much better performance from Andy as for the most part he served well and he exploited Raonic's inferior return game and also the fact that his big serve wasn't working, which ultimately so the Canadian's lacklustre performance in the tournament come to an end.
Which brings me onto Andy's last round robin match and it was a must win one to stay in the tournament and reach the semis and it was with none other than Andy's old rival, Roger Federer. At 11-11 it promised to be quite a treat, but........ it turned out to be a real nightmare instead for the British No.1, which I will get to in a bit. Going into this match there was a revelation that Raonic had withdrawn from the tournament due to an apparent quad injury, which meant that David Ferrer would step in as his alternate. And as a result Ferrer took Kei Nishikori on in the 3rd round robin match, which turned out to be easily the best and most entertaining match of the tournament so far and the only match to go to 3 sets, which eventually saw Ferrer fall to an in form Nishikori in 4-6, 6-4, 6-1. This meant that Nishikori now needed Federer to either beat Andy in either straight sets or in three to seal his place in the semi final and pip Andy to the post in doing so, and Andy could only qualify by beating Federer in straight sets.
Sooo..... this leads me onto the match itself which was... well no match at all as it more just a mere warm up for Rog who after a few rusty opening points went on a rampage and destroyed Andy's chances of qualifying in one foul swoop as he dished up a bitter bagel set for Andy to chew down on. At this point, Andy had nothing left to play for except maybe a bit of pride and dignity, but Federer barely allowed him that as Andy's dreadful serving and error-strewn performance got him in serious bother again and Rog's sublime touch was simply too much for him to handle as Andy dropped to 5-0. But Andy somehow managed to save being totally humiliated with a double bagel as he managed to hold serve once to claim a single game before Rog completed his destruction of the British No.1 winning in the most emphatic fashion possible with a 6-0, 6-1 rout and thereby ending Andy Murray's season.
To say this wasn't the ending that Andy had hoped for would no doubt be a total understatement and it is a bitterly disappointing end to what has been a very difficult and frustrating year for him. You could argue of course that Andy was still feeling the effects of fatigue of having played on those six weeks of the tour in succession in order to qualify but in all honesty Roger has to be credited with his performance as he simply outclassed Andy in every department and there is no doubt that indoor hard court suits Rog's game to a tee. So its an end that leaves quite a few question marks over Andy's current form, not so much over the players that are ranked below him as he has proven that late on in this season that he can beat top 10 players, but morely on his ability to beat the top three guys, in Roger, Rafa and Novak, as this year he has failed to beat any of them in any of their meetings. And it makes you wonder if Andy will be able to find that top form again against them? Personally I think Andy will find that form and hopefully he will go on to have a much better 2015 where he will a have a chance to come back stronger.
So that's it for Andy's 2014 on the ATP tour and its been a really mixed season to say the least as he has played some great matches (such as epic clashes against Rafa in Rome, Grigor Dimitrov in Acapulco, Tommy Robredo in the Valencia final and Philipp Kohlschreiber at the French Open) but also played some dreadful ones as well and its a pity that he saved the worst one for last as he did not deserve for his season to end on such a low, but that's the way it goes. The good thing is though Andy has still managed to successfully come back from his surgery with no physical complications or other issues and no doubt the recovery process was one of the toughest things he's had to endure this year. Not only that he also had to deal with the departure of his coach Ivan Lendl after two years together, and in hiring his new coach Amelie Mauresmo, there was much speculation and doubt over how effective she could be for Andy's game. And this in itself is still an issue as no doubt Mauresmo will come under fire again for Andy's heavy defeat to Roger here as it shows that she has not made any impact on improving his game against the top three so far, especially as Andy has failed to beat any of them this year. For now Andy has decided to continue his partnership with Mauresmo so we will wait and see how long it will last and pan out.
But that aside Andy still has managed to do some good things this year as he managed to win three titles, two back to back with Vienna and Valencia, and he won his first title in 14 months in Shenzhen to end the drought that went back to the Wimbledon final. Andy has also secured good wins over top 10 and former top 10 opponents such as Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Marin Cilic, David Ferrer, John Isner, Grigor Dimitrov and also Milos Raonic, which despite his current poor record against the big three, he is starting to compete much better against his other rivals and it sees him to start to work his way up again. So it may take some time for Andy to get back to that top level and hopefully he can as he started the year as No.4 in the world and dropped down to No.11, but after the exhertions leading into London, he is now successfully back in the top 10 sitting at No.6. Andy also insisted he played so much not only to qualify for London but also more importantly to improve his seedings for the grand slams next season as being inside the top 8 will help out Andy in not facing the big guys before the quarter finals.
So that's it for now and I think despite his shortcomings and disappointments in 2014, Andy Murray still has proven that he is a vital tennis player and hopefully he can build on the late form he has shown this year and put it into better practice in 2015. Until then I'm sure he will benefit it from a well earned break before the training starts for his 2015 season.
And with that I shall leave yee there and be back with the result of the final of the ATP world tour final finale, which let's face is most likely going to be Djokovic and Federer by the looks of it, but we will soon find out!
Bye for now!
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