Andy Murray - Good, Bad and Ugly

"What are you doing?" shouted a rather angry Murray. In hope more than desparation. I was wondering that too Andy. What were you doing? His movement was poor, his timing off, mentality wasn't there. Verdasco credit was serving him off the park and Andy just at best played like an WTA player in a practice session. Andy was out of sorts. What goes through a players mind? Not just in tennis. In any sport. Sometimes you go out and you are just not feeling confident or feeling the moment. You withdraw and almost draw a blank. It happens. Yes I know they are professional athletes, but they have their bad days. Andy looked almost like he hadn't picked a racquet was how poor his performance was to me. Andy to me mentally was not in the moment and just couldn't get himself moving or get his confidence going. Verdasco looked the more at home on Centre Court. So much is made of him and his mentality and how a variation of about 0.2oc in the temperature would send him packing mentally. However he has had a fantastic tournament and I hope this marks a return to form. Andy's stuff at times was powderpuff.

Nadal and more recently Djokovic have made habits of winning when all the chips are down. Federer has even done it. Murray now has done it. However there is a but. Maybe not in the same swashbuckling vein as the others, but still Andy showed a tremendous display of fitness and athletism. That is what saw him through. It was only a matter of time before Verdasco buckled under the physical strain. You sometimes don't get what you deserve and maybe Verdasco could feel hard done by. The attractive tennis didn't win out I know, but I am a Murray fan and I would take that victory because winning ugly is something all players do at one stage or another. The first 2 sets were the bad of Murray. The 3rd and 4th was the good of Murray and the 5th was the ugly of Murray.

Looking ahead and a might Janowicz awaits. A quicker serve and heavier groundtrokes for sure. I am hopeful Andy might just a play miles better than he did today. What Andy needs to do is match the mental and physical side of his game together, because that is when he is at his best and most dangerous.

C'mon Andy!!

Today was a lot of bad and ugly 2bh.
But got the win i guess.

You have to give a lot of credit to Nando, his FH was immense today and took Murray out of his hitting zone, when he got back into it, it looked like he's forgotten how to attack and play aggressively.

Verdasco was punishing Andy into the corners for most of the match, taking him out wide and finishing him off in the open court.

Flat footed, confused, disorientated. I think he was a little shell shocked by Nando's bombardment. But it was a difficult thing to ask someone who has come back into contention, to forget the past. Murray began, although defensively again, to take the sting out of Verdascos shots, not all the time, but enough to claw his way back into the match, and yes, it was ugly, but all the more entertaining for it too.

The last set was an exercise in seeing who could last out the servicing, a couple of stray shots from the Spaniard and you could see him tighten slightly at 5-5.

For me, I didnt know if Andy was going to win, until he fired the Ace for 40-0 serving for the match, before then, I was expecting Nando to pull off a couple of strikes and level back, such was his state of play today.

That's a nice article lk. I think this tournament can be compared to last year's USO where Murray chucked in an awful performance (Bogomolov) followed by a superb performance (Dodig). An awful performance (Lopez) followed by a brilliant performance (Raonic). An awful performance (Cilic for 1 and 3/4 sets) followed by a brilliant performance (Berdych). Today was one of those "awful" performances, now let's see him hopefully follow it up with a "brilliant" one.

(Note: "awful" and "brilliant" are just terms, substitute them with "good" and "bad" if you want).

Of every Murray win at slams that I can remember, this is the one I thought he had least chance of coming back into. I was convinced he was toast. Never ever seen him play as bad as he did for the last 15 minutes of the second set.

But I guess everyone has these days, and a lot if top players have had them this tournament. Difference with Murray, he survived. I'm not sure how, but he did.

He will have to play much better on Friday.

BTW, did anyone see his BBC interview straight after? Gary Richardson basically saying "will Lendl give you the hair dryer treatment for the first two sets?" What a condescending question! What do you think he is, a schoolboy to be told off?

I'd have told him to F*** off if I was Murray!

As Chris Addison said "This is Tim Franks reporting from Wimbledon A&E with a tennis racquet up my a%se"

The very best competitors find a way to get the win while playing badly (and as Danny said above, the second half of the second set is as badly as I've ever seen Murray play).

I wonder if some of this was Andy's rustiness at playing against lefties, and especially lefties with aggressive and heavy topspin forehands - first match Andy has had against a lefty this year, where normally he'd at least have faced Rafa a couple of times, so would be a little bit grooved at controlling the big spin.

Everything just seemed to be off today - movement, racket control, timing, shot production and shot selection.

There's a clip from Gary Richardson's dreadful post-match interview here: http://ftw.usatoday.com/2013/07/andy-murray-bbc-interview-gary-richardson/

Would have loved to see Andy Roddick reaction if he was being interviewed the same way! Murray showing loads of patience really.

I heard that interview live on R5Live whilst driving home and winced at the Lendl question. What a chump.

Not Murray's best match but Verdasco isn't mentally strong enough to capitalise, I never doubted Murray would lose even when 2-0 sets down. Didn't matter for me who won as cant see anyone stopping Djokovic.