• Terrific in Toronto, so-so in Cincinnati, now comes the hard part
• Easy opener against Lukas Lacko should put Scot in groove
For most of the year until the gears clicked again in Canada, Andy Murray has shared his pain: a mix of disillusion, anxiety and some rubbish tennis.
Press conferences began to sound like an old episode of In The Psychiatrist’s Chair. He gulped at his words in mid‑sentence, the tousled head dropped and, in that engaging monotone that always seems like a Scottish parody of Tim Henman, he would try to explain why his game resembled a madwoman’s breakfast.
At his nadir, he said he had fallen out of love with tennis, which some took as a reflection of his faltering relationship with Kim Sears. Theories flew like baseline rallies.
In short, the guy just had a slump, albeit a tough and long one. On Wednesday in New York, as he embarks on the final grand slam of the summer still in pursuit of his first major, Andy is back in love with tennis. And back with Kim.
He has sold the flash Ferrari, which he was too embarrassed to drive, said goodbye to his coach of two-and-a-half years, Miles Maclagan, and, with his mother, Judy, beaming down her support from the stands, probably Britain’s best player since Fred Perry is banging them in again with pleasing regularity.
Murray has an easy start against the world No72, Lukas Lacko, whom the Scot has known since they were 13 but has never played. Lying deeper in the draw are Tomas Berdych and Rafael Nadal. The favourite, Roger Federer, who denied Murray glory in the final here two years ago and in Melbourne in January, is on the other side of the draw.
The turning point in Murray’s season, clearly, was beating Nadal and Federer back-to-back on the way to his first win of the season, the Rogers Cup in Toronto two weeks ago. He then did fairly well in Cincinnati, until the heat got to him in the quarter-finals, where he went out in three tough sets to the rejuvenated Mardy Fish. Those tournaments, however, are essentially tune-ups for the big ones. As he said earlier in the year when explaining his priorities about the Davis Cup: “What do most people want me to win? I think it would be one of the grand slams.”
That quest has proved too much for a string of fine British players – most notably his good friend Henman – reaching all the way back to 1936 but it genuinely does not seem to concern Murray.
And he is doing it by himself. What other teenager would break free from the cocoon of the Lawn Tennis Association’s cloying embrace to live alone in Spain and learn tennis in a wholly different way? As for the “sacking” of his coaches – from Leon Smith to Maclagan – that, surely, is affirmation of his independence, rather than petulance.
Murray knows well where his game is. When he declared that his tennis at the Cincinnati Masters was “OK” rather than a repeat of his brilliance the week before in Toronto, he got it about right.
The truth is he has not wholly rediscovered his best form. There is still doubt and concern about his strategy and he remains unconvinced by calls from knowledgeable observers to abandon his safety-first tennis in favour of all-out domination of the net. Day to day, Murray looks after his own game, with texted tips from his mother and the help this week of his part‑time European coach, Alex Corretja.
We shall see what kind of shape he is in.
