Murray turns sights on one last Glasgow clash
Scot determined to be fit for Davis Cup next week Verdasco row stirred up again on social media
Andy Murray left New York with a parting shot at Fernando Verdasco, the Spaniard who had eliminated him in a bad-tempered match in Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Yet Murray’s mood after his first grand-slam outing in 14 months was otherwise upbeat and he now looks odds-on to join the British Davis Cup team in Glasgow in just over a week’s time.
The flashpoint of Wednesday’s match arrived after the third set, as the players took their allocated heat break in the locker-rooms.
When they returned to the court, Murray raged at chair umpire Nico Helwerth, insisting that Verdasco had been speaking to his coaching team – something forbidden by the terms of the US Open’s new heat rule. He also said that he had been forced to intervene, because the US Open’s officials did not know the “----ing rules”.
Once the players had left the court after Murray’s 7-5, 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 defeat, Verdasco played the innocent, claiming that he had simply been chatting to fellow player Marcos Baghdatis and his coach while he took his ice bath.
Yet this sounded unconvincing. Verdasco was seen to make a “come here” gesture to his player’s box as he left the court, and the more he discussed the issue – in successive interviews with English-language reporters, the BBC and Spanish newspapers – the more vague and waffly his answers became.
Murray would not let the issue lie. Having thanked his fans for their support in an Instagram post, he added: “I’m off to get a health check as apparently I’ve started imagining things.” In a quirky marriage of old and new, he then added a schoolyard chant in hashtag form: “Liar, liar pants on fire.” However rusty Murray’s groundstrokes might be, he has not lost his innate ability to create a stink.
Clearly, Verdasco’s controversial ice-bath chat was not the reason for Murray’s 3hr 23min defeat. Quite the reverse, in fact. Murray’s sense of injustice inspired him, causing him to forget for a moment about all the physical struggles that have reduced him to No382 in the world. For the last hour of the match, he played with a freedom and a fire that we have not seen since the start of his two-month comeback.
Yes, Verdasco also lifted his own game, but if you had watched a tape of that fourth set, it would have been hard to know whether this was Murray before or after his hip operation. As he said afterwards: “That was some of the best tennis I’ve played since I had the surgery.”
Murray can take plenty of encouragement from his two matches in New York. His body did not break down, even if he limped heavily at times, and his lateral movement is a step slower than we might remem- ber. Now he has a whole fortnight to rest and rehabilitate that angry hip joint before a likely return to Davis Cup action at Glasgow’s Emirates Arena.
The tie against Uzbekistan – who could be led by world No76 Denis Istomin – was supposed to be a relegation play-off. Unfortunately, it has been rendered largely irrelevant by the sweeping changes that are being introduced to the Davis Cup next year.
Great Britain will play in the new qualifying round in February whatever happens, and the only thing that remains undecided is whether they will be seeded or not. However, home-and-away ties will become rarer under the new model and there is no knowing when Glasgow might host another one.
“Potentially it’s the last time I’d get to play competitive tennis in Scotland, so I would like to do that,” Murray told the BBC. “I’d have to chat to my team because this is a very important period in my rehab.
“Playing five sets takes a lot out of you, which I’ve obviously learnt in the last couple of days, and the Davis Cup has also taken a lot out of me,” he added. “But there’s a big part of me that would love to play and get the opportunity to play one last time in Glasgow.”