Lendl: Andy gets better every day
Ayear ago today andy Murray won his second Wimbledon title, but the way he was limping at times during practice yesterday made you wonder — again — whether he can really win a third.
Conducting matters at the back of the court was Ivan Lendl who then reflected on what separates Murray and his fellow champions from their challengers.
It is these small differences that Murray will have to draw upon if he is going to make it through the second week, starting this afternoon against France’s world No 46 Benoit Paire.
Lendl said: ‘Most of the time the top guys do win because they are a little better than the others. Whether it’s problem solving, dealing with a lack of matches for a while, the distractions off the court — these guys are used to it.
‘The top guys are better purely in stroke production, movement, physically, the package is slightly better than the guys below. The others can upset them,hem, but if they play 100 timeses the top guys are goingg to win more than half and that’s because the package is a little more complete.’
For that reason it looks likely that Friday’s semi-finals will seee Murray versus rafaelel Nadal and roger Federererer versus Novak Djokovic,kovic all past their 30th birthdays.
Murray looks the weakest link, yet on Friday night he showed once again why he is so difficult to put away with that fourth- set comeback against Fabio Fognini.
Lendl, from the school of nononsense analysis, affects not to be concerned about his player’s build-up to this event and was reassured by Murray’s gumption.
‘Do I look worried? I do what I can and don’t worry about the past, that’s just pointless,’ he said airily. ‘He looked pretty good didn’t he? It’s andy, you expect it. That’s how people win tournaments — they fight. It doesn’t come easy. you don’t always play your best and fighting is part of it.
‘He’s in the second week so he is in with a chance, same as 15 other guys. By the end of tomorrow, if there is no bad weather there will be only seven and hopefully andy.
‘I wouldn’t mind if he had played a few more matches, but now he has played three, so that problem went out the window. you can see andy is hitting it better and cleaner every practice, getting his timing back and rhythm back. I thought Fognini played a very good match. He’s unpredictable with skill and that’s very dangerous. It was the same with Henri Leconte.’
Today’s opponent is from a long line of French players who — like Leconte — are often brilliant but flawed, with their natural ability undermined by the fact that the stairs do not always reach the attic. While Lendl once famously described grass as being best suited for cows, Paire has gone much further in the past, venting his spleen against the surface and Wimbledon particularly.
In 2013 he obliterated his rackets after losing here, telling L’Equipe: ‘I don’t like Wimbledon. When I go on the court they tell us we have to be careful with the playing surface, but the courts are not so good. Once I got a $1,000 fine for saying “merde”. Here all they like is handing out fines.’ In 2015 he tweeted that he could not wait to get hhome from this ‘s***’ ssurface’ and only tthree weeks ago at the aTP event in HHalle he got a game ppenalty for smashing hhis equipment in frufrustration. at the rio Olympics he was kkicked out of the French team for choosing to spend more time in the fleshpots of Copacabana than in the athletes’ village.
yet he can undoubtedly play and has an excellent backhand and dropshots that have troubled Murray before. He says he has reconciled himself to the vagaries of grass and adopted a far more positive mindset.
an undoubted advantage for Murray is his familiarity with the Centre Court, which has again been his permanent residence at Wimbledon, as it is for Federer.
There are no hard and fast rules about court allocation but their squatters’ rights are to their benefit. The tradition of having a fallow middle Sunday means that, as ever, there is a surfeit of big names to fit on to the show courts on the bumper second Monday.
Without the rest day, though, the surfaces would be even more beaten up than they are already. It is set to be a week of stressed competitors on stressed courts.