Reign ends in standstill
ray, even if he couldn’t thunder around in time-honoured fashion, held the psychological advantage. Querrey under pressure couldn’t pinpoint his first serve and, worse, missed an easy smash. Murray was leading again, the boxing fan proving yet again what a fantastic scrapper he is. But this was as good as it got for him.
Third game, fourth set, Murray lost his serve, two crosscourt forehands from Querrey doing the damage. Blowing the first point on serve immediately sparked jitters; meanwhile Querrey could do no wrong on his, booming 27 aces. Murray was virtually static now. For him, the match was like trying to climb a mountain in high heels. He fired a forehand down the line but there was a critical lack of welly to it and Querrey performed a neat pick-up on the run to make the match all-square.
The crowd tried again to lift Murray. “Come on, Andy, let’s go,” they chanted, but it was no use. Querrey was serving to love, Murray was getting himself in an almighty fankle every time it was his turn. After 2 hours and 42 minutes, a rally at grim end was wretched to watch, and must have been even more painful for Murray. He very nearly won it, and in his desperate pounding of the turf there were glimmers of the superhuman qualities of retrieval which won him the title. But this time he couldn’t turn barley water into wine.