Andy Murray is a long, gangly eighteen-year old. He looks like a hangdog teenager whose mother just told him, \u201cYou have two choices young man, you can take the garbage out and be happy about it or you can take the garbage out with a chip on your shoulder. Either way, take the garbage out, now!\u201d<\/p>\n
Andy Roddick is five years older than Murray. On the ATP tour, that\u2019s a lifetime. In five years Roddick has gone from being the great U.S. hope to a grand slam winner to the edge of being a disappointment. It\u2019s ridiculous to mention the word disappointment considering that he\u2019s the number three player in the world, but he doesn\u2019t look like a real threat to get to number one and that is a disappointment.<\/p>\n
When a player has more than one or two shots in their repertoire, it\u2019s a good indication that they are skilled in crafting a point.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Murray will not avoid the same expectations. The young man from Scotland jumped from the 400\u2019s to the 60\u2019s in ranking last year. You hope he doesn\u2019t go too far too fast, meaning that his tennis skills might outrun his emotional maturity. Media training sessions for tennis prodigies are inadequate for dealing with the British press. You need something more like a masters degree in serpentology.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s see how their games match up by looking at their semifinal match at the 2006 SAP Open. Murray managed to beat Roddick for his first victory over a top ten player, 7-5, 7-5.<\/p>\n
Roddick\u2019s biggest weapon is his serve. Most of his winners, by far, come from aces and service winners. If he\u2019s feeling good, he can regularly serve over 130 mph and sometimes in the 140\u2019s. If his life depended on it, he could serve over 150 mph. Murray serves in the 120\u2019s but, and you\u2019ll hear this a lot, changes speeds well and hits spots. In this match, Murray piled up more service winners than Roddick.<\/p>\n
Roddick\u2019s next big weapon is his inside out forehand. Which brings up Murray\u2019s slice backhand. When Murray is pulled wide by Roddick\u2019s inverted forehand, his slice backhand is a very good defensive shot that, to some degree, neutralizes Roddick\u2019s best shot.<\/p>\n
Murray has a diverse game. While more than half of Roddick\u2019s ground stroke winner came off the inside out forehand, Murray had four forehand winners and four backhand winners from the baseline, four winners off approach shots, four passing shots and four winning volleys. That\u2019s diversity<\/p>\n
When a player has more than one or two shots in their repertoire, it\u2019s a good indication that they are skilled in crafting a point. Serving at 3-4 in the second set, Murray hit four straight balls to Roddick\u2019s backhand – two crosscourt and two down the line. On the next shot he hit a sharp crosscourt forehand to pull Roddick out of the court then hit a backhand winner to the open court. That\u2019s called crafting a point.<\/p>\n
After pulling off the shot of the match, a running backhand passing shot that was inches off the ground, Roddick stopped and raised his hand as if he was a conductor motioning to the crowd that they should now express appreciation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Roddick, on the other hand, does not craft points particularly well and does not always take advantage of his strengths. Even at three games each in the first set, Roddick hit a good first serve and Murray floated the return. Roddick hit a hard inside out forehand but didn\u2019t follow it to the net. After a second inside out forehand, Roddick managed to pressure Murray into an error but there are his two best shots and he didn\u2019t take advantage of either one. He didn\u2019t serve and volley on a strong first serve and he didn\u2019t come to the net after running his opponent wide.<\/p>\n
Murray is patient. He\u2019ll keep the ball in play until the opportunity presents itself. He looks like he\u2019s just getting the ball back in play until he sees a patch of open court and hits the ball as hard as he can to get it there. But he\u2019s still young. After winning the first set 7-5 then breaking Roddick to go up 3-2 in the second set, Murray evidently thought he should put the match away because he started to force shots. He forced a forehand approach, came to the net on a weak shot and went for a big forehand winner off a weak return to give the break right back.<\/p>\n
Murray is prone to nervousness. After breaking Roddick again in the second set, Murray served for the match. After Roddick hit a net cord return that dropped for a winner, that\u2019s enough to unnerve anyone, Murray served up two double faults, the second one on match point. He put a backhand into the net before gathering himself together to make a good first serve and get his second match point. Roddick hit the ball wide and Murray finally had his victory.<\/p>\n
Roddick is an expressive hothead. Not in the mode of John McEnroe or Nicolas Kiefer, but he will mock the chair umpire and express a fair amount of sarcasm if he thinks he\u2019s been wronged. It makes his matches entertaining because he\u2019s emotional and he plays to the crowd. After pulling off the shot of the match, a running backhand passing shot that was inches off the ground, Roddick stopped and raised his hand as if he was a conductor motioning to the crowd that they should now express appreciation.<\/p>\n
Murray is a quiet, low-key person. When a reporter asked him how he felt about beating Roddick and knocking off his first top ten player, he said it was \u201ca dream come true.\u201d With Murray, however, it was hard to know if it was a dream come true or he was ordering breakfast with that quiet monotone voice of his.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s o.k., the British public is not all that keen about showboating. They\u2019d be happy enough if Murray can become an elite player and over the moon if he can bring home a slam or two. If not, we\u2019ll be right here to compare him to the next great young player who comes along and knocks him off.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s just the way it is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Andy Murray is a long, gangly eighteen-year old. He looks like a hangdog teenager whose mother just told him, \u201cYou have two choices young man, you can take the garbage out and be happy about it or you can take the garbage out with a chip on your shoulder. Either way, take the garbage out, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tennis-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}