Andy Murray is well beyond the stage of his career where he needs someone else to help to make him look good. The 21-year-old is talented enough to do it on his lonesome.
When Murray, having reached the semi-finals of the Mutua Madrileña Masters spoke of Gaël Monfils, who he had just put to the épée yesterday, he said that he appeared to play better than he had because the manner of the Frenchman made it seem that way. If it was a way of letting his opponent down lightly after a 6-2, 6-2 thrashing, Murray acquitted himself just as well to that end.
“Although I played very well, it’s easy to look like you’re playing well against him because you have some awesome points,” Murray, who faces Roger Federer today in a rematch of their US Open final last month, said. “He does so much running. He almost enjoys running too much. He leaves the ball in the middle of the court and likes you to dictate play.” And Murray is too much of a player to refuse invitations so colourfully embossed.
Indeed, yesterday afternoon was an unremitting success and one could not even pick a fight with him for dropping his serve in the first game and, for the second time in the match’s 67-minute duration, when serving for it. Murray placed this result among his finest ten of the year and in terms of his ball-striking, it deserved the highest commendation.
It could be argued that the game is a lot easier to play when you lead by a set and 4-1, but the sixth game of the second set will live long in the memory. Murray broke to love as the Scot read a smash and struck a double-fisted winner down the line, contrived a stunning forehand cross-court winner and then tricked Monfils into coming forward and messing up a volley. He played every stroke in the book lethally.
It was suggested to him that big-time semi-finals — and they do not come much bigger than against the world No 2 — are becoming something of a staple for Murray. Typically, he would have little truck with such hyperbole. “It’s only been since the summer that I’ve started to do it a bit more,” Murray said. “The points total I’ll have after this week in some years would have had me at No 2 in the world, so that’s how good a year I’ve had. It’s unfortunate that I’ve got two of the greatest players ever and Djokovic, who has been unbelievably consistent for the past two years, in front of me. So it’s been a great year.”
And there are three weeks to run, a period that, if Murray keeps up this kind of attitude, will serve only to enhance his reputation among the top players.
He knows that he will have to play better today than he did against Federer in New York, but beating Monfils in just over an hour is a world removed from having to play Rafael Nadal across two days on two different courts, beat him for the first time and have a touch more than 24 hours to prepare to face the four-times defending champion.
Federer said that at this time of the year, and after the season he has had, he is taking every match as it comes, with nothing too much to lose and not a terrible amount to gain. Murray, having qualified for the Masters for the first time, is in the same mood.
The Swiss has veritably skipped through his three matches here, the third of which was a 6-3, 6-3 win over Juan Martín Del Potro, of Argentina.
Nadal needed an injection in his serving shoulder to compete for a place in the semi-finals last night. The Spaniard defeated Feliciano López, his countryman, 6-4, 6-4 and will meet either Ivo Karlovic, of Croatia, or Gilles Simon, of France, today.
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