MURRAY’S A LOSER IN PAIN GAME
Brit exits as hip trouble seals fate
Relief was the over-riding emotion when the whole thing was over because the disintegration of Andy Murray had started to make your eyes water.
By the end, he was a physical wreck on the baseline, so lacking in lowerbody strength that he swatted his racket from the hip like some secondrate club player.
But when the dust settles on it all, Murray will be haunted by the departure which left Sam Querrey grinning in the press room last night. The whole world suddenly wanted to know about how the American likes to ride his bike and go to concerts.
The inconvenient truth is that Murray had an eighth Wimbledon semi-final berth in the palm of his hand, because for a set and a half Querrey had been his usual self: a nice guy from California who is a little lacking in the professional intensity department.
The No 24 seed — who becomes America’s first men’s Grand Slam semifinalist since Andy Roddick eight years ago — was pitiful in the early stages. So feckless that he lost the first seven points and did not mind admitting afterwards he feared that run continuing.
The mechanics of Murray’s hip had nothing to do with the fact that the top seed threw away the chance to take a two-set advantage.
He was serving for a 5-3 lead in the second when, at 15-30, he netted a complacently loose drop shot from the baseline. Querrey seized the break-point chance, promptly broke Murray again and the balance of the game changed irrevocably.
Murray kept his hip injury so shrouded in secrecy and contradictions last night that it was difficult to ascertain quite what an achievement it had been simply to make it this far. But, once again, it is hard to avoid the impression that the physical and psychological are bound up together where he is concerned. The mind is simply not as willing when the flesh is weak.
it was certainly shocking to see him struggle with a mere few feet of lateral movement on the first point of the third-set tiebreaker, which he won. His hip seemed to jar as he attempted to hit a ball no more than a racket’s distance away.
The tiebreak disguised Murray’s underlying problems. He won one of a 10-game sequence beginning near the end of the third set. His last two sets at this year’s Wimbledon took 49 minutes to lose.
The last reduced him to freefall, with a mere 45 per cent of his first services going in and a desperate 18 per cent of second serve points won.
The psychological balance began to shift, too. The lumbering, error-prone Querrey became a mobile, motivated winner. Asked if he felt Murray’s injury seemed extreme from his vantage point, Querrey was diplomatic.
‘i mean, you’re British,’ he said. ‘But he kind of does that a lot sometimes. even when he’s feeling healthy, sometimes he can limp around. He was maybe feeling it a bit more (in the fourth and fifth sets) and i was gaining some confidence. Once you kind of go a break up in the fourth, go up a break in the fifth, i’m kind of playing with house money. i can be more aggressive. i’m feeling better.’
These were words to make Murray curse — as is the composition of the half of the draw that he has exited. Had he only managed to see out his quarter-final, there would have been a day to rest, regroup, plunge into ice baths and prepare for a semi-final against Marin Cilic.
Murray has a 12-3 win ratio against the Croat.
To his credit, the 30-year-old did not attempt to dress up his defeat around the injury. He cited the pivotal eighth game of the second set. His pained expression was certainly not one of a player satisfied he had taken things as far as he could. Djokovic, whose departure through injury removes another major obstacle, looked far less glum.
Murray’s decision not to call the trainer seemed odd, although it has become an article of faith for him not to seek such medical support.
The reflex action of many players is to do so, if only to buy themselves some time and break the negative flow of a game. Murray has never been one of these. The trainer had simply not been an option for an underlying injury like this, he reflected last night.
‘No, nothing much you can do there in that situation,’ he said when asked if he had considered it.
Querrey said this result was no great hardship for the British nation. ‘it would be one thing if they hadn’t had a champion in 80 years and he lost. i don’t think i just ruined the hopes of every British person out there,’ he said.
Murray will be struggling to see things that way.