ANDY RULES IN NEW YORK Tennis Correspondent reports from Flushing Meadows
Murray’s demolition of Dimitrov leaves American fans awestruck
NEW YORKERS are known in American sport as a tough crowd to please, but the reaction was almost one of awe as Andy Murray produced his Bank Holiday special.
On the last knockings of an elongated Labor Day weekend, the 29-year-old Scot demolished Grigor Dimitrov to reach the US Open quarter-final — including a 141mph serve in his showreel.
As the emblem of a sometimes breathtaking performance, it could hardly have been more vivid. Murray stepped up to the line on his opening set point and crashed the ball past his opponent in a yellow blur.
even in the world’s largest and noisiest tennis arena, it spoke volumes about the way Murray is feeling after a summer in which he has swept all before him.
The 6-1, 6-2, 6-2 result sets him up perfectly for his quarter-final against sixth seed Kei Nishikori at around 7pm this evening.
Murray’s signature serve was a perfect confluence of power, technique and confidence, aided by several factors peculiar to the time, place and opponent.
As he explained later, one aspect was his tactic of using the flat serve — his quickest — down the middle to attack Dimitrov’s single-handed backhand.
‘I used the serve to the backhand a lot more than maybe I would against a guy with a double-handed backhand,’ said Murray, his demeanour as relaxed as you could recall at this stage of a Grand Slam. ‘That’s why my average speeds would have been up. Normally you split your spots on the serve more, but I served the majority on the deuce court up the “T”.
‘I started that way and it was working. It’s not that I have technically changed my serve in the past 48 hours.’
He also felt that stringing his rackets to a slightly higher tension than usual, thereby adding a little extra control, gave him the freedom to swing harder at the ball.
One other factor would have added to the speed — the physical characteristics of the Wilson ball used at Flushing Meadows.
They are known for losing almost all their ‘fluff’ towards the end of their lifespan and the balder they become, the faster they fly through the air.
As the first set of balls in a tennis match are used for the warm-up and the initial seven games, the 141 mph blow at 5-1 would have been the last point this batch were in use before they were changed.
Murray has been clocked hitting it faster, but on those occasions the speed gun was hopelessly unreliable, unlike in New York.
The more significant improvement to Murray’s serve remains his second delivery, which he puts more work on these days to make it more difficult to attack.
Murray also felt he played so well against Dimitrov purely because he had a good night’s sleep on Sunday, perhaps helped by Manhattan beingeing relatively deserted due to the holiday weekend.
Murray was certainly a changed man from the one who was given an unexpectedly difficult third round on Saturday by Italian journeyman Paolo Lorenzi.
‘I chatted to my teamm after the last match because I was a little bit flat on the court. I hadn’t been sleeping great here, just didn’t feel great the last few days.
‘I chatted to Ivan Lendl and Jamie Delgado and it was, like, ‘‘Look, you’ve got a few days left here; give it everything you’ve got. Let’s go out there and fight, give everything you’ve got in the matches. There’s a break in the schedule coming soon’’.
‘ I slept 12 hours on Sunday night. Maybe itit’s because it was the Labor Day weekend but it’s been much quieter. There’s no noise in the city, really. Maybe that helped.’
Murray’s positive frame of mind has also been boosted by the success of other GB players, although he was unbothered about whether it took some spotlight from him.
‘It’s not so much me being less talked about, it’s just more that British tennis is doing well and that makes me happy. It’s nice being surrounded by more British players because that hasn’t been the case for a long time at these events. Often after the first couple of days you’ve been on your own with just your team.’ Now he faces Nishikori, against whom he has a 7-1 record that includes his recent 6-1, 6-4 victory in the Olympic semi-final. The world No 7 is such
a huge star in Japan that he disguises himself in cap and sunglasses there.
World No12 Gael Monfils reached the second Grand Slam semi-final of his career by defeating fellow Frenchman Lucas Pouille last night 6-4, 6-3, 6-3. Angelique Kerber made the women’s semi-finals, beating Italy’s Roberta Vinci 7-5, 6-0.