Hi all, good looking new forum
Thanks for the invite General Hercules.
Why, you may ask, did I think Stan would beat Andy in 3 sets?
1. Stan has always given Andy some trouble; he matches up pretty well with him.
2. Stan beat Andy in their last US Open match in 2010.
3. Stan demolished Andy at Monte Carlo this year. 1 & 2, though some may think this is irrelevant because it was on clay, it still showed me something.
4. I think Stan has been the better overall player on hard courts this year, despite Andy's win in Miami and early in Brisbane. Stan pushed Novak to the edge, losing a 5 set thriller at the Australian Open, and it was really anyone's match at the end.
5. It seemed to me that Wawrinka's level has gone up since last fall, while Murray's has gone down relatively speaking.
6. I have not seen the fire in Murray since he won Wimbledon, where he said that winning it would be the best thing he would ever achieve. I personally don't think that is a good attitude to have if you want to go on and achieve more. Maybe he'll get the fire back, maybe he won't.
7. Murray had 2 relatively poor matches in the lead up hard court events in Toronto and Cincinnati.
While he also didn't do so well last year in those events, and still won the US Open, last year he had a pretty good excuse. He had a tough Olympics, which he won. I think he needed the break that he got. This year, I think he needed to perform better in at least one of those masters, and he did not.
Wawrinka played a very intelligent match today against Murray. He really mixed it up. He played a fair amount of off-pace stuff, giving Murray some of his own medicine, then hit it hard from both wings. He tactically used the court well. He came to the net whenever he had a chance, even on some he shouldn't, but that looked part of the plan. All this mix caused Murray to not have a lot of rhythm.
Wawrinka served fairly well, but nothing spectacular. On return, he pretty much had Murray at his mercy whenever Murray sent in one of his pretty weak second serves. It was only a question of whether Wawrinka would keep the ball in play as he hammered the wounded duck.
Eventually, Murray started missing more and more of his first serves. Murray did not play that well off the ground, as it looked like Wawrinka's tactical mix threw him off. Only Andy's first serve kept him from having a worse 1st set score. Once Wawrinka started reading Murray's 1st serve better and Murray's first serve went off a bit, Murray didn't have much else on which to rely on, and Wawrinka pulled away to win in a not very close 3 sets.
The good news for Stan Wawrinka is that this effort should not have taken a great deal out of him, and he should be ready for his next match against Youzhny or Djokovic.
Congratulations to Spartan Stan Wawrinka and his fans. Commiserations to Andy Murray and his fans. Andy won Wimbledon; even the great Lendl could not win it.
Respectfully,
masterclass
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