Hate to say it but we need amiracle for this to happen again on Sunday
BRACE yourself Scotland. There may be trouble ahead.
Andy Murray might be putting a brave face on things but the more he grimaces and winces his way through this defence of his crown here in SW19, the more we near an unpalatable truth.
It appears more and more unlikely his body will be in any state to allow him to deliver a third Wimbledon title on Sunday afternoon.
He looked better yesterday it must be said. In fact, as he unleashed his full armoury at 18-year-old hitting partner Barnaby Smith it felt at times as if the youngster was being used as a punching bag on court 15 of Aorangi Park, Murray’s preferred secluded corner of this sprawling training complex.
But even if Scotland’s greatest ever sportsman is winning his battle against a damaged right hip in time for today’s Centre Court date with flamboyant Frenchman Benoit Paire, it’s the fact he’s having to fight it at all which so undermines his chances of going for glory in the second week and repeating his triumphs of 2013 and 2016.
At one point during a punishing two-hour session here on Saturday, Murray looked as if he simply could not continue. Grimacing after dumping a forehand into the net he turned to side-kick Jamie Delgado and complained, “I can’t put weight on my leg. I cannot do it”.
Granted it was a very different and more relaxed Murray yesterday but if he is to go all the way again this year then he will need to be in absolute mint condition and operating at the peak of his phenomenal powers.
There are three utterly compelling reasons why Murray at 60, 70 or even 80 per cent will almost certainly not be good enough to go the distance this time around – Rafa Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.
Murray might have hoped that he had left at least two of these giants of the game behind for good last year when he swept his way to the top of the tennis charts after winning at Wimbledon and also securing a second Olympic title.
At 35, Federer’s best days are surely supposed to be behind him by now and Nadal had also looked like a bit of a spent force. With a troubled Djokovic also seeing his form fall off the side of a cliff, Murray ended last year on the crest of a period of complete domination.
And he was due a break too, given fate’s wicked decree that he must share this era with three of the greatest players ever to have squeezed into a pair of Slazengers.
Had Murray been free of them then who knows how many Grand Slams he might have stuffed into his own shorts by now? So it seemed only fair that, as he entered his 30s, the competition for the game’s top honours might begin to slacken off a little. All the way down to ferocious.
In that regard, Murray’s timing stinks as badly as his luck. No sooner did he reach the top than all three of his rivals regrouped at the same time.
As a result, Murray now has the misfortune of being hunted down by three of the most dangerous men the sport has ever known. Considering how hard he has pushed himself to get into this position, it all seems almost savagely unkind.
And if he has any hope of staying ahead of this ravenous pack then he’ll need all of his limbs to be in perfect working order.
The good news is he should have enough left in the tank to take care of business back on Centre Court today. The hot-headed Paire will most likely offer the stiffest resistance yet but this racquet-hurling hipster should have neither the temperament nor the skill set to finish Murray off, despite the World No.1’s questionable physical condition.
Assuming Murray does prevail he’ll face either Sam Querrey or Kevin Anderson in the quarter-finals on Wednesday. First, the American and the South African will have to batter the daylights out of one another in a battle of the monster servers for the right to aim their bullets towards our boy.
And given Anderson blocked Murray’s progress to the quarter-finals of the US Open in 2015, that could be awkward enough for him to navigate a way through, dodgy hip or not.
But if Murray’s title defence is still just about hanging together by then, unless his luck suddenly changes for the better, the chances are he will be limping into a head-on collision with Nadal’s revamped juggernaut in the semi-finals.
Right now, it is difficult – no, make that almost impossible – to see how Murray might survive such a meeting because Nadal’s old superhuman qualities have returned to such an extent the Spaniard might as well be charging around on Centre Court wearing a cape over his T-shirt and shorts for the rest of the week.
To spend five minutes watching him close up on the practice courts, pounding forehand after crushing forehand over the net, feels like witnessing an act of brutality.
If anyone is hitting the thing harder here at Wimbledon this summer then the foundations of the old place are in considerable trouble.
Also, Nadal has blasted a path into the finals of two slams already this year in Australia and in France, beaten in Melbourne by Federer before winning an historic 10th title on the clay in Paris just last month.
If Murray is to stand a fighting chance of preventing him making it three from three, then somehow his team will need to have him moving freely and without pain between now and Friday afternoon – when Djokovic and Federer are likely to be battling it out for the last route to the final from the bottom half of the draw.
Of course, Murray has proved in the past that he can live with all of them on his day. But to see them all off again here, this week? Murray won’t just need to defy medical science in order to do that. He’ll need some kind of miracle.
Murray might have hoped he had left at least two of these giants of the game behind for good last year