Andy Murray will challenge the defending champion Rafael Nadal in the Semi-Finals of Wimbledon Championships 2011 on Friday for the second year running.
If wishes were horses, Murray will ride the victory chariot. He must be having an overwhelming desire to prove that he is not the best player never to win a Grand Slam title. Nadal, on the other hand, has ten already. He is hungry for more, but is not starving. Murray has lost Grand Slams finals through sobs, humiliation, and critics’ ire and is now a thickened man. He is not a choker but does not play best in the crucial stages of the Grand Slam tournaments. In Wimbledon, he has always carried a burden of huge expectations. He has not found it to be a privilege. It would be interesting to evaluate what would have been the result if Wimbledon were not played in United Kingdom.
Nadal’s game is the same tried and tested game, day in and day out. He will hit the serve on the T from the deuce court to the back hand of a right hander, move in and kill the weak return. He will repeat that from the ad court too except that the serve may be anywhere in the service box. If the opponent is a good returner, Nadal would initiate a never ending rally and pull the trigger from the forehand when the opportunity comes. If the opponent is playing at an astronomical level, Nadal would hang on there playing rallies after rallies testing the patience of the opponent. If the opponent remains composed and does not commit errors, Nadal would try to take the match into five sets where his superior conditioning will prevail in about four hours.
Both Nadal and Murray play similar type of game, which is safety first and attack later. They strive to patiently create openings and then pull the trigger. Nadal’s shots are ferocious. Murray will have to absorb the ferocity for a few shots in the rally before unleashing his own shot into Nadal’s forehand corner. The second tier players continue to attack Nadal’s backhand, but the top players attack his vacant forehand corner where the gaps reside. Murray has to compensate for comparative lack of power in his ground strokes by foxing Nadal out in the cat and mouse exchanges.
Murray may try to keep the ball away from Nadal’s forehand. But such an approach would hamper his own free flowing game. Nadal’s forehand is good but not that it can not be returned at all. The ball may bounce a few inches more due to the excessive top spin, but then Murray is two inches taller and it is grass, not the highest bouncing surface. Murray will have to run more since such heavily spun ball speeds away after landing close to the side lines. But he has got impressive wins running like hare to such balls. Murray’s movement is as swift as that of Nadal since he has better anticipation. His shot making on the run is better since the action is smoother.
It will be very important for Murray to break Nadal’s rhythm. He can employ the same tactics which he successfully used in the Australian Open 2010. He would serve to the back hand of Nadal, come to the net and volley a winner. Nadal’s back hand is vulnerable on service and he is sometimes seen trying to go round it. His back hand return gives higher net clearance and has less power in it. Even if Murray was not able to reach the net in adequate time to execute a volley, he was comfortably hitting the sit up ball on the rise to the other corner. It is difficult to predict that such tactics will always work, but this is a template which has worked well. It looks certain that Murray will at least try this a few times to test the effect.
The first serve percentage will be one of the indices of Murray’s mind make up. If his percentage exceeds 60%, he has come in as a determined man. Nadal, of course, would be serving around 70%. Murray has capacity to hit aces at a minimum of two per three service games. But his percentage goes down at crucial stages when he needs them most. This is in sharp contrast to Federer who uses serve to get out of the trouble spots. Nadal does not have overriding dependence on serve alone. He has ground strokes to get the points.
Murray has a stronger back hand. If his team has seen Djokovic defeating Nadal in the four Masters finals this year, they would be prompted to suggest that down the line back hand is a successful shot. Murray has got good results by hitting back hand cross court winners in the vacant forehand corner of Nadal from the ad court.
Murray can not defeat Nadal by playing the same endless rallies which Nadal wishes his opponents to play. If he is trying that, he would fall into the Nadal trap and play to his tune. He will have to be aggressive. There have been occasions in the past when Murray was accused of turning into a pusher when he fell behind. Both he and Gael Monfils have tasted defeat repeatedly with such reactive tennis. If Murray tries not to lose, he will lose for sure. He has to win playing aggressive tennis. He has won in this fashion in Australian Open 2010. Nadal’s prominent losses have come against opponents who attacked incessantly. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in Australian Open 2008, Robin Soderling in French Open 2009, Juan Martin Del Potro in the U.S. Open 2009 and David Ferrer in Australian Open 2011.
It was said that Murray's best surface is hard court followed by grass. Clay was not said to suit his style of play. But then, he has performed beyond expectations during the clay season. If he could play well on clay, there is no reason why he can not do it on grass. He has lost to Nadal both times when they have met at Wimbledon. If there is a law of averages, Murray could be lucky the third time.
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