John McEnroe is adamant that Andy Murray has “his best shot ever” to win the French Open. Even allowing for the American’s penchant for theatricality, that is an encouraging endorsement.
“There’s a chance for Murray. Maybe his best chance to win the French ever could be this year. This year. I don’t know if he’s going to be able to keep this up, so to me he has got his best shot ever,” the American tennis legend said.
McEnroe added: “Andy’s had an incredibly consistent record in the slams—and they’re much tougher to beat in the slams, these guys. There is no question he has gotten a lot better. He has had to get better and he has probably made them better. He can take pride in that as somebody who is trying to have a great rivalry.
“It has been extremely difficult at times and frustrating. He has had better moments than almost anybody, obviously, but there is always something you could say he could do something about. You could say: ‘Maybe his second serve could be a little better.’ But there have been times where it has been better and others where the reality is just nerves or something gets in the way a little bit. And then everybody says: ‘See… there’s the old Murray.’”
The old Murray has been evident here and there in this tournament, searching for the fine form that carried him to the finals in Madrid, where he lost to Novak Djokovic, and then in Rome, where he beat him.
Murray knows he has yet to hit a convincing rhythm throughout a whole match, having struggled through 10 sets at the beginning to shift two players outside the top 100, Radek Stepanek and Mathias Bourgue. It was probably at the start and end of his four-sets win over Richard Gasquet in the quarter-finals that the ‘new Murray’ arrived. At times, he was majestic, especially in giving up just two games in the final hour of the match.
Nevertheless, he has had a few problems with his serve, and his drop-shotting of Gasquet—although it drained the Frenchman’s legs—was not as precise as he would have liked. On clay, it is a shot that can win a lot of points, if planted in the right place at the right pace.
Yesterday’s semi-final presented a different challenge entirely—even against another single-handed backhand artist in Stan Wawrinka, who destroyed Djokovic with it a year ago.
Murray has kept an eye on the Swiss’s progress here, of course, but pointed out: “The way that I play against Stan will be different to the way that Novak plays against him because, although our games are fairly similar, we have different strengths and hit shots slightly differently. A year has gone by since then…”
McEnroe, who will give up some of his pre-Wimbledon time preparing for his stint with the BBC to advise Milos Raonic on how he might make an impact there, thinks Djokovic is playing so well he could overhaul Roger Federer’s 17 slams.
“It’s good in a way that you have people talk about it, it’s kind of history in the making,” he said of the Serb’s dominance. “It has happened so fast. Pete Sampras sat down after he got his 14th (slam title) at the US Open, stopped playing with this magnificent way to go out. And the next thing you know and not that long later, Roger is beating (his total) and Rafa catches him. It’s crazy.
“And now Novak, all of a sudden he’s at 11. It’s insane how tough they are to beat. It’s incredible. So, yeah, potentially that could happen. And Murray could add on a couple. And Stan looks like he is pretty dangerous right now. Stan has got the same amount of majors as Andy. I mean you wouldn’t put their overall career record on the same page but at the same time that’s a pretty good place to be.”