Andy Murray - Tennis News, Facts and Stats

After Andy Murray’s loss today, all British tennis hopes again lie with Jamie Murray, the current Wimbledon mixed doubles champion. Jamie Murray and his partner American Liezel Huber started their quarter final match on court 2 just as Andy Murray was about to lose his own quarter final match.

The 12th seeded Brit-American duo were taking on the the second seeds Canadian Daniel Nestor and Chia-Jung Chuang of Taipei. The duo made few mistakes as they reached their second grand slam semi final together after they won 6-4 7-5.

Murray and Huber have played the last three grand slams together and have had decent success, recahing the semi finals in their first event together at the 2007 US open and only losing to eventual winners at the Australian Open and Rolland Garros.

Jamie Murray will be looking to reach his second straight Wimbledon mixed doubles final after winning the title with Serbian Jelena Jankovic last year. Jankovic pulled out of the mixed doubles to concentrate on her bid for the singles title,though unfortunately for Jankovic, she lost to unseeded Tamarine Tanasugarn in the 4th round of the ladies event.

Rafael Nadal played his best tennis of his Wimbledon so far to knock out the last remaining British singles hope, Andy Murray. The Scot was out played by in form Nadal going down in straight sets 6-3, 6-2, 6-4.

The classy Spaniard took apart Murray in less than 2 hours, he only produced 8 unforced errors and dropped only 10 points on his serve  the whole match. After the match Nadal said

I played my best match here for sure, tried to play aggressively all the time, andtried to attack his second serve, but a win like this is always surprising - against someone like Andy who came back so well against Gasquet. Probably he felt tired. It’s always tough in Grand Slams, so that’s normal. I’m sorry for him, but he’s going to be in the top five very soon if he keeps playing like this and he has a good chance of winning Wimbledon.

Andy Murray was broken a total of 4 times and saved many more break points, but Murray never got a sniff on the Rafael Nadal serve, he managed only 2 points on the Spaniards serve in the 2 games of the whole match and even on those games Nadal rarely looked troubled.

Murray will leave Wimbledon having went 1 roundfurther that he has ever went at any grand slam, he will be back in the world’s top 10 and back in the top 8 for the ATP Race when the new rankings are announced next week. So Murray can take many positives from his Wimbledon run, though the disappointment today at the ease of how he was beaten will hurt for many weeks to come.

Tomorrow Andy Murray will step onto centre court again for the fifth time this Wimbledon to take part in his first ever grand slam quarter final. Murray will face his biggest ever Wimbledon challenger, Rafael Nadal, the world Number 2 and perhaps soon to be world number 1.

After the heroics of Andy Murray yesterday in the 4th round round the odds on him winning his quarter final against Nadal are looking slim. The Spaniard is the overwhelming favorite to win match with all of the bookmakers. The best odds you will get for Nadal winning is around 1/5 and Murray is seen as the 5/1 won shot. Though if you place your bet at betfair you will get slightly better odds and a free £25 bet.

The history of these two players suggests that the bookmakers have it right, the two have met on 3 previous occasions and Nadal has won all 3 matches. Their first match together was an epic 5 setter in the 4th round of the Australian open in 2007. A 19 year old Murray was beaten more from fatigue than Nadal when he twice lost a 1 set lead going down 6-7(3) 6-4 4-6 6-3 6-1.

Since then they have met twice on the regular ATP tour, in 2007 they met at the Madrid Masters, Murray lost a tight 2 set match 7-6(5) 6-4, this match played out in front of a very partisan Spanish crowd, the roles will be very much reversed tomorrow.

Their final and last meeting was just 2 months ago at the  Hamburg Masters, this time the match took place on Clay and Murray never really had a chance of beating the clay court specialist. Murray would lose the match easily 6-3 6-2.

Will the crowd play a factor?

The bookmakers will look at the stats, Nadal has beaten Murray 3 times out of 3, Nadal is a grand slam winner, a two time Wimbledon finalist and he has just won his first grass court tournament at Queens Club. Throw into this that Murray expended much more energy reaching the quarter final than Nadal and you couldn’t argue with Nadal’s odds. But this will be one of the biggest matches that Wimbledon has ever seen, this quarter final match may even top all of Tim Henman’s matches. The centre court crowd could be all it takes to sway this match in Murray’s favour. 

Ignoring the ridiculous comments of some of the broadsheets, for example this story printed prior to the Gasquet match, it suggests that Andy Murray will never win over the British public. This particular writer must have been slightly embarrassed this morning to find that over 10 million people watched on TV and ”Murray Mound” was visibly the busiest anyone has ever seen it, this is not forgetting the atmosphere in a packed centre court and the end of the match coming at 9.30pm. I think Murray has already been accepted by the British public.

The Murray Mania goes further though, tickets are being sold at over £2000 for the Murray vs Nadal match, the highest price seen for last years Nadal Federer final was half this. What would happen if the unthinkable came true and Murray made it to the semi’s or finals?

For that to happen he needs to find a way to beat Rafael Nadal, his first serve will be critical, if serves near his best with a high percentage of first serves, then look out Britain because Murray could win this match. If he serves as he did in the first 2 sets against Gasquet, then Murray can forget his chances of upsetting the bookmakers.

Come on Andy!

What a match! What a match! Andy Murray put 2 and 3/4 sets of poor tennis behind him and made a fairy tale comeback to reach his first ever Grand Slam quarter final at Wimbledon, completing an amazing match against Richard Gasquet to win 5-7 3-6 7-6 (7-3) 6-2 6-4.

Just as the sun was about to set tonight Andy Murray wrapped up the most unlikely of comebacks when it had looked like the sun was setting on Andy Murray’s Wimbledon just a few hours earlier. When down 2 sets and Gasquet up a break serving for the match, the young fiery Scot stepped up and turned the match around from what looked like a complete un-winnable position.

After a tentative start by both players, Gasquet began to take control of the match, as Murray continued to falter Gasquet flourished. At 6-5 with Murray serving to stay in the first set, Gasquet managed a few break points, in what will go down as one of the most charged games ever on centre court, a pumped up Murray began to show some signs of improvement as he saved break point after break point, but it wasn’t enough and Gasquet eventually broke to win the set. An early break followed in the second and it looked as if we were heading for a Brit Free Wimbledon!

At 4-4 with Murray serving, those fears were being realised as Murray lost his serve for the third time in the match and Gasquet took a 5-4 lead and would serve for the match. If Murray was to stay in this match he would have to break now for the first time in the match. A mixture of good shots from Murray and unforced errors by Gasquet, that looked very possibly as Murray rushed to 0-40 lead and three break points. Gasquet saved two and Murray’s chance of a comeback were looking less likely. Now the turning point. Gasquet served a double fault and handed the break back to Murray.

The pair would both hold serve and tie break would decide the third match. An obvious tight Gasquet began to make mistakes and Murray raced to 3-0 lead with two mini-breaks. Gasquet would get 1 back and bring the score back to 4-3. This is when Murray stepped up and played his best consistent tennis of the match yet, to win the next three points.

Murray carried his form into the fourth set and this coupled with a mis-firing Gasquet allowed Murray to gain two breaks of serve and win the set 6-2.

After a “comfort break” from Gasquet that was met with a round of boos from a pumped out Wimbledon crowd. The tactic of using his comfort break did no favours for Gasquet, Murray broke the Frenchman in his opening service game and now serving well Murray would be difficult for Gasquet to break back. This proved to be the case and the eighth seed didn’t get another break point in the match. 

After 3 hours and 56 minutes of the most intense tennis Murray got his first match point on the Gasquet serve in the tenth game, though he wouldn’t win the match on this point. Gasquet forced Murray to serve for the match and Murray did not disappoint the Wimbledon crowd who had been through a major roller-coaster of a match, dare we compare to Henman Wimbledon match! He would get his second match point on the 4 hour mark and finished off the match with a big serve down the middle.

After the match Murray said,

The light was tough at the end and I wanted to try to finish the match, That was the best moment I’ve ever had on a tennis court. To come back from two sets to love and win it is an awesome feeling. The crowd got behind me just when I needed it and to have them behind me was a privilege. I think he got a bit nervous towards the end of third set. I had to keep fighting, he was completely outplaying me and once I won that third set his head went down and I kind of ran away with it

Murray now faces the easy task of Rafael Nadal in the Quarter finals, I’m sure he will in win 3 sets or maybe not  - watch this space for what will likely be another fantastic match.

Andy Murray will today attempt to win again at Wimbledon and for the first time in his career reach at grand slam quarter final. Murray will take on French 8th seed Richard Gasquet on centre court, the 4th round match will be the third match on meaning the match will likely begin around 5pm. 

Murray has reached the 4th round of a grand slam on 4 previous occasions, twice at the US open and once at the Australian open and here at Wimbledon 2 years ago when he lost to Marcos Baghdatis.

Richard Gasquet has allready made been as far as the Wimbledon semi finals when he lost to Roger Federer last year, this is his only notable grand slam result.

These two players could hardly be more evenly matched in stats, Murray is 11th and Gasquet is 10th in the world rankings, both have won 5 career titles and they both have very similar grand slam results (excluding last year’s Wimbledon that Murray missed), 4th rounds at US open and OZ open and poor results at Rolland Garros.

The two have met previously on two occasions and unfortunately for Murray Gasquet his won them both. Their last encounter was at the ATP Masters Series event in Paris at the end of last year in three sets 6-3 0-6 6-4. Their first meeting was in 2006 in Canada at another ATP Masters Series event, Gasquet won in two sets 6-2 7-5.