Crashing the Party
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Version 0 of 1. The door is ajar, not yet open, but knocking or even lowering a shoulder will not necessarily get Andy Murray onto the court of contemporary tennis royalty. So Darren Cahill, who helped match Murray with his wily coach, Ivan Lendl, would advise Murray to bring the same metaphoric weaponry he used on Roger Federer in the Olympic gold medal match to the 2012 United States Open. “It was not so much a tactical thing; he just took out a sledgehammer and beat it down,” said Cahill, a former tour player who has coached Andre Agassi and Lleyton Hewitt. “Listen, these guys at the top have staked out their territory. They’re not going to just let Andy in.” Murray is seeking his first Grand Slam championship and full-fledged membership into an exclusive club that has created what Cahill called “the most intriguing era of men’s tennis.” Murray’s continuing mission: put a ceremonious end to the characterization of the current elite, in so many words, as the Big Three and maybe. .... This year’s final major, on the hardcourts that suit his versatile game, may well be Murray’s best chance yet. That is taking into account his recent thrashing of Federer, the withdrawal of the injured Rafael Nadal and the retreat of Novak Djokovic from virtually unbeatable in 2011 to more vulnerable, at least in the supercompetitive confines of Club Fed (in deference to Federer’s 17 career Grand Slam titles). With membership in the group that has claimed a head-spinning 29 of the last 30 Grand Slam titles comes a growing confidence that at times borders on an understandable arrogance. “I think we are setting standards for a lot of new generations,” Djokovic said. “We make each other better players, and we need to work harder because we know that the competition is getting bigger and more intensive.” Publicly and abstractly, the Big Three are typically generous enough to include Murray and even Juan Martín del Potro — the one Grand Slam interloper (United States Open, 2009) — or a Jo-Wilfried Tsonga when discussing the enhanced physicality of the sport since the days when shorts were really short, rackets did not pulse with power and the game was less global and less attractive to a higher brand of athlete. Even Lendl — a proud fitness fanatic who reached eight consecutive finals at Flushing Meadows and won there three times — has said that he would have stood little chance against the mix of 21st-century athleticism and powerful baseline arsenals. But he also knows that making the most of one’s physical tools demands a mastery of competitive psychology that has separated Federer, Nadal and most recently Djokovic. Can Lendl help Murray think and feel like a champion? Even after beating Federer in straight sets at the Olympics, Murray withdrew after one match from the Rogers Cup in Toronto with a sore knee, then was upset in the Western & Southern Open in Mason, Ohio, by Jeremy Chardy. That left him short on match preparation heading into New York, and hedging on the psychological benefits of Olympic gold. “Yeah, I mean, I’ll need to see over the next few weeks whether it’s changed my mind-set going forward,” Murray said. “I’m sure I will have gained a fair amount of confidence from it. But confidence in individual sports comes and goes very quickly.” Therein lies the difference between a Club Fed member and a contender, said Paul Annacone, who as Federer’s coach (since 2010) was by his side for a seventh Wimbledon title in July and what most thought was an improbable return to the No. 1 ranking. “I think Andy Murray’s a great player — I’ve thought that for a while,” Annacone said. “I can’t imagine he’s not going to win a Grand Slam; he’s too good. It’s just getting over that hurdle, believing once and for all that he is right there with those guys.” Born in 1963, Annacone was a young sports fan during a golden era of heavyweight boxing, when Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier and George Foreman formed a trilogy largely defined by matchups. Ali struggled against Frazier’s unorthodox left-handed style, Foreman annihilated the smaller Frazier, and Ali’s hand speed and wits befuddled Foreman. Tennis is not as beholden to such precepts, given the multitude of times the best players engage one another and with conditions varying from outdoors to indoors and surface to surface. But Annacone agreed that the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic triumvirate mimicked Ali-Frazier-Foreman in that Nadal’s southpaw topspin forehand can be overwhelming for Federer and for his one-handed backhand, but is in a more comfortable ball-striking zone for the two-fisted Djokovic. Although Djokovic ascended to No. 1 last year and beat Nadal in seven straight matches, Federer was hardly overpowered by his flatter ground strokes, denying Djokovic a shot at a calendar Slam in the French Open semifinals and holding double match point against him at the United States Open. This summer, Federer stopped Djokovic in the Wimbledon semifinals and recorded a rarity at the top, a 6-0 set, en route to beating him in the final of their final Open tuneup in Ohio. In his career, Nadal holds an 18-10 edge over Federer, defeating him in six Grand Slam finals on three surfaces. That has created the sense that Federer fears Nadal, but 12 of Nadal’s victories against Federer have been on clay, where, Cahill said, playing Nadal is “mission impossible.” And if Djokovic was in Nadal’s head while dominating him in 2011, Nadal has responded by winning their last three matches, including this year’s French Open final. On and on they go, imperiously imposing their will on all but one another except for the rarest occasions. Reporters and fans relish in making grand pronouncements after episodic developments in the continuing game of king of the hill, but as Annacone said: “These guys appreciate the drama and the moment; they just don’t let it define them. They don’t get hung up by the sensationalism of one or two matches. To them, that’s life. You play another great player, you lose sometimes.” Federer’s return to No. 1, after beating Murray at Wimbledon in July and before he turned 31 this month, spoke not only to his lasting greatness, but also to his steadfast belief in himself. Brad Gilbert, who has coached Agassi, Murray and Andy Roddick, said: “Roger seems to be the most comfortable at the top, like the guy who really enjoys wearing the yellow jersey at the Tour de France. But the three of them are constantly working on ways to attack, to get into the other guy’s head, to figure out something that will work.” In the 1980s, the enmity between John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors was palpable; in the 1990s, a persistent uneasiness existed between the personality opposites Pete Sampras and Agassi. In the era of European ascendancy and general amiability, the competitive dynamic has been more nuanced, with more to read between the lines. Was there a psychological gamesmanship at work when Nadal would defer to Federer as the greatest after another beatdown on the Grand Slam stage? Are Federer’s occasional immodest comments subtle reminders to Nadal and Djokovic that he is the club’s founding member? Early in Djokovic’s career, with his raucous relatives irritating the Federer and Nadal camps and with his on-court impersonations of his rivals and others, he seemed to be a prime antihero candidate, provided he could be as successful as he was entertaining. Djokovic and family have since toned the act down. And three years after he won his first Grand Slam event (Australian Open, 2008), the exclamation point to as good a year as Federer ever had happened last year in New York when Djokovic defeated Nadal in the final after barely surviving Federer in the semis — most memorably with a rousing forehand winner return of a Federer first serve on match point. The artiste in Federer was stunned by Djokovic’s go-for-broke audacity at such a moment; he considered the shot “very hard to understand.” But had Djokovic pushed back his return, the odds were that Federer would have put the point and the match away. That relates to Murray and his envisioned Grand Slam breakthrough. As the television analyst Jimmy Arias, a former American top-10 player, said: “The problem for Murray is that for his entire career, he’s been able to massage the ball in and defend so well, and that beats everybody except those other three guys. He’s got to think aggressively from the start of the tournament to the finish.” In other words, don’t bother knocking and asking for admission to Club Fed, because there is no secret code word or application process. In the athletically enhanced state of men’s tennis, the metaphorical sledgehammer makes the case much better than the slice. |