‘Best yet’ Murray poised to pounce at US Open
NEW YORK: Andy Murray admits he’s playing the best tennis of his life as he looks to capitalise on the growing frailties of his rivals and capture a second US Open title. Ahead of Monday’s start to the season’s final Grand Slam in New York, the 29-year- old Scot is the sport’s man of the moment.
Since losing the French Open final to Novak Djokovic in June, Murray has won Queen’s Club, a second Wimbledon title and successfully defended his Olympic crown in Rio.
His career- best 22- match win streak came to a halt at the hands of Marin Cilic in the Cincinnati final last weekend when he simply ran out of gas.
But that hasn’t dented his confidence that he can claim a second US Open, four years after his breakthrough in New York saw him become the first British man in 76 years to win a Grand Slam title.
“I think I’m playing my best tennis just now... the last four, five months are not even close to anything else I had done before,” said Murray, who is chasing a fourth career major.
Murray has played in all of the first three finals of the majors in 2016, losing to world number Djokovic in Melbourne and Paris before putting Milos Raonic, one of the sport’s widely-hyped new generation, in his place in a straight sets spanking in the Wimbledon final.
The only worry for Murray is his relatively mediocre record in New York in the years since his first win -- runs to the quarter-finals in 2013 and 2014 were followed by a fourthround exit to Kevin Anderson of South Africa 12 months ago.
Murray’s consistency on the tour in recent weeks is in stark contrast to the rollercoaster fortunes of Djokovic, the defending champion in New York. After he won a maiden French Open to complete the career Grand Slam, all talk was of the Serb going on to defend his Wimbledon and US Open titles and clinch a calendar Grand Slam. That’s a feat so rare that only two men have ever achieved it with Rod Laver the most recent in 1969. — AFP