Sportsnob – Critics Corner

Not since Fred Perry in 1936 has there been a male British Wimbledon Champion but that could finally be about to change. Andy Murray, currently the world’s number three, just completed a remarkable tournament at Queens in preparation for Wimbledon in which he didn’t drop a set and the British media have been quick to hype up his chances.

Murray is a player more suited to the hard courts but his grass game seems to have come on a lot over the past year. He pulled out an outstanding array of shots in the Queen’s final against James Blake and made victory look relatively easy. I have great admiration for Blake as a player and the way Murray dealt with him was impressive to say the least, the American seemed to have no response to Murray’s high-tempo game.

Where the Scot has come unstuck in previous Wimbledon Championships has perhaps been his failure to kill a game off, often making sloppy mistakes meaning he has to play a full five sets before he beats his opponent. This has a big effect on his fitness for the following matches and you can often see Murray feeling the effects of fatigue later on in competitions. His displays at Queens demonstrate Murray seems to have overcome this particular problem and he should see off the lesser known players with greater ease meaning he is fresher when he faces the greats such as Roger Federer. Obviously, Rafael Nadal’s absence will make things easier for him (ever so slightly).

A problem that seems to haunt British players at Wimbledon is the expectations of the British media who always put the pressure on the best British representitive to lift the trophy. For some players this helps them, Tim Henman, for example, arguably overachieved by reaching the semi-final stage of the competition four times. Henman never won a Grand Slam and in all fairness never really looked as if he was going to, yet the British media continued to talk up his chances. Similarly Greg Rusedski’s chances were always talked up but in reality it would have been highly unlikely for the big-serve specialist to have gotten much further than the quarter finals in a Grand Slam.

Without a doubt Murray is the best British tennis player in a long time and if anyone is going to end the 73-year wait winner it surely has to be him. However, the player himself remained cautious on his chances of upsetting the tennis odds and lifting the trophy at the end of the tournament.

Speaking after his Queen’s victory Murray said: “I’m a long way from winning Wimbledon.

“I feel confident but I try not to get too far ahead of myself before I’ve played my first match there.”