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Andy Murray suffers shock defeat to Radek Stepanek at Queen’s Andy Murray suffers shock defeat to Radek Stepanek at Queen’s
(about 1 hour later)
Andy Murray, distracted by his own anxieties, perhaps, and a ball girl who wilted in the heat, relinquished his Queen’s crown in the most perfunctory manner on Thursday. It will come as little comfort to Andy Murray that, 10 days before he begins an historic defence of his Wimbledon title, he should lose to world No42 Radek Stepanek in straight sets at Queens, where he was king, just as Rafael Nadal was bowing out on the grass of Halle to world No85 Dustin Brown.
The always tough Czech Radek Stepanek, 42 in the world and coming off a good win over the unpredictable Bernard Tomic, beat the defending champion 7-6 (10), 6-2 in an hour and 54 minutes. He goes through to the fourth round against the dangerous South African Kevin Anderson, who earlier took out the Russian serve-and-volley specialist, Sergiy Stakhovsky, 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (4). Schadenfreude exists in tennis, but so does cold, hard calculus. And neither the world No1 Nadal nor the world No5 Murray will figure that these defeats against big-serving opponents who are always dangerous on grass represent season-wrecking setbacks.
Murray at least has some unscheduled spare time to get to know his new coach, Amélie Mauresmo, before he heads to Wimbledon to defend his title. She was courtside for only the second time on Thursday and Murray seemed to respond to her presence with a much calmer demeanour than when previously struggling against lower-ranked players. What might concern them is the regularity with which such shock results are spreading across the Tour. Nadal, supreme on clay and coming off his ninth French Open triumph, will probably have struggled more to accept losing 6-4, 6-1 to Brown, the lowest-ranked player to beat a world No1 since No98 Mardy Fish upset Roger Federer at Indian Wells in 2008. That’s not the sort of history Nadal wants to be making.
However, he will not be pleased with his performance, after seeing off the Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu in straight sets on Wednesday. Murray was not altogether ecstatic that the steady Stepanek, eight years older than him and eight years on from his days in the top 10, was able to put 11 aces past him (all but two of them down the T) on his way to winning 7-6 (10), 6-2 in just under two hours.
Stepanek deserved the win, hitting 11 aces in all, and saving seven set points before breaking Murray in the tie-break with a forehand volley – shortly after a young ball girl had shown signs of heat strain and was led from the court – then powering through the second set with palpable ease. While Stepanek goes through to the fourth round against the dangerous South African Kevin Anderson – who earlier on Thursday took out the Russian serve-and-volley specialist, Sergiy Stakhovsky, 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (4) – Murray retreats to the comfort of his Surrey mansion to rest for a few days, before resuming training next week with his new coach, Amélie Mauresmo.
Murray did not serve well, with five double faults, and could not find a sustained stretch of high-intensity tennis to trouble the steady Stepanek. This was his second win in seven matches against Murray. It’s been a good eight years since he was in the top 10, but he is never easy to beat. The French Fed Cup captain was as impassive in her own way courtside when Murray’s game slowly disintegrated in the second set as Ivan Lendl had been during the Scot’s remarkable two years with Old Stone Face, on good days and bad.
After half an hour, they had split the six available games, and Stepanek held in the seventh – considered in the game as the crucial turning point in a set – but Murray was under some pressure to level. What was markedly different was Murray’s demeanour. Gone was the edginess, replaced by calm that bordered on torpor on a gorgeous summer’s day amid the clinking of Pimm’s glasses on the terraces of the poshest tennis club in this or any other land. He seemed to lack zip and urgency, and will strive to rediscover those qualities at Wimbledon where expectations – his own and the nation’s – will be stratospheric.
When Stepanek broke again early in the second set, Murray looked powerless to halt the slide and, in a three-setter, there is very little time to recover. His serve was not clicking at all, and he had to hold through deuce for 2-3. Last year, he sandwiched his greatest achievement between his back collapsing in Rome, forcing his absence from Roland Garros, and a back operation in September. This year, the scenario could not be more different.
Stepanek took him to deuce again in the seventh game, then broke for 5-2 with a return that dribbled on to Murray’s side of the court. It was not Murray’s day, any way you looked at it. “This year I played a lot of matches the last couple of weeks at the French Open,” he said, “whereas coming in last year I probably had about a week, 10 days’ preparation on the grass before I started here. On Sunday I’ll be back here for the charity match, then I will start practising on Sunday evening.” The Rally for Bally will raise money for cancer charities after the death of Elena Baltacha.
Stepanek, serving for the match, was grateful for Murray’s last, limp shot, a sliced backhand from the baseline that barely billowed the net. Murray has signed Mauresmo for the short grass season, with a view to extending the relationship to their mutual satisfaction after further negotiations, and he hinted again that he will welcome what he perceives to be her more considerate regime.
“We spoke before the start of the tournament,” he said, “and I was going to have a few days off as soon as I was finished here, whether I won the tournament or not. So in some ways [the loss] can be good, providing I use next week properly.”
Neither of them will have been pleased, however, with the way Murray failed to cash in on a 6-2 lead in the tie-break, nor the lack of penetration in his serve, which faltered for a free point to Stepanek five times, as well as his inability to get forward against the aggressive Czech.
“When you serve on grass the first ball that comes back stays a lot lower,” said Murray.
“You need to use your legs a lot better, you need to stay down on the court more. On the clay courts the ball comes up around your shoulders so you use your legs in a very different way. I was a little bit upright on the court at times today, especially when I was rushed.”
Mauresmo is unlikely to play nurse to Murray, though. Nor will the Frenchwoman drive him where he doesn’t want to go. And that, it transpires, includes mowing the lawn. Murray said on Thursday he would not be using any of his down time to clip the lawns at his substantial property in Oxshott – and also revealed: “Actually I have never done it in my life.”
Greenkeeping, then, has yet to appear on the horizon as a post-tennis career.