HURTACHE FOR ANDY
Stricken Murray suffers agonising defeat
FROM ecstasy to agony in 12 months. From King of Centre Court to fallen warrior.
Andy Murray’s reign as Wimbledon champion is over. Battered, bruised and ultimately beaten up by Sam Querrey.
Over the years, he has put his fans through the emotional mincer but this was pure torture.
The 3-6 6-4 6-7 6-1 6-1 scoreline tells it own sorry story but this wasn’t so much a mental collapse as a physical one.
As Querrey grew in confidence, his stricken opponent’s hip condition deteriorated.
By the end, Murray could barely walk but even though the outcome seemed inevitable, there was no chance of him quitting like eight of his peers did in the opening two days.
This bloody-minded Brit is made of sterner stuff. In the penultimate game he played in one of the rallies of the tournament, scampering, twisting and turning in a vain effort to prevent being broken a fifth time in the last two sets.
Hammered
An hour or so before Querrey hammered down his 27th ace to seal victory, there had been talk of Murray self-destructing.
He had thrown away a winning position in the second set and allowed a third, which had looked in the bag, to drift into a tie-break.
Even in defeat, the 30-year-old beat himself up that he had failed to win in straight sets.
“I think I had chances in the first three sets,” he said. “I was up 4-3 in the second and then got broken twice. That obviously turned out to be quite an important part of the match.
“I did manage to win the third and I could have got the match done in three sets had I closed out the second after getting that break.”
There was little to suggest how savagely this match would turn.
Murray breezed through the first set in 28 minutes and when he broke in the seventh game of the second, Querrey’s bid to claim a record by reaching a Grand Slam semi for the first time at the 42nd attempt looked forlorn. But an error-strewn 10 minutes from Murray provided Querrey with fresh hope.
He levelled the match and took the third set into a tie-break after the Scot had played a horrible game when serving at 5-4.
Querrey fluffed a simple overhead as Murray took a two sets to one lead but this was no corner turned for the home favourite.
With his movement more and more laboured, he was broken to love early in the fourth and didn’t hold serve again until the fourth game of the decider by which time his fate was sealed.
Querrey, who becomes the first American since Andy Roddick in 2009 to reach the last four, will now face Marin Cilic.
He deserves enormous credit, hitting 70 winners and attacking at every opportunity.
But the hip injury Murray had been carrying would overwhelm the Brit as much as his hard-hitting opponent.
“I’ve been a little bit sore the whole tournament,” added Murray. “But I tried my best right to the end. I gave everything I had and I’m proud about that.” MARIN CILIC cut Rafa Nadal’s conqueror Gilles Muller down to size, coming from behind to win 3-6 7-6 5-7 7-5 6-1.