Wimbleton preview: Rafa retains key to Murray's future

Published on Saturday 20 June 2009 19:37

HE MAY be at home in Majorca nursing his aching knees but Rafael Nadal has cast a huge shadow over Wimbledon. His absence has caused a flutter among the schedulers in the referee's office – Roger Federer will now play the first match on Centre Court tomorrow rather than last year's champion – while his withdrawal has caused several flutters with the bookmakers: the odds on Andy Murray are shortening by the hour.

The Scot is now, unofficially, the No 2 seed at the All England Club. In that frightfully English way of theirs, the blazers of Wimbledon have left Murray as the No 3 seed but have quietly removed all signs of a No 1 from the draw and the statistics.

That means that Dunblane's favourite son is still the second-highest seed in the competition and the highest-ranked seed in his half of the draw.

As Murray has been saying since he won the Queen's Club title last weekend, he knows he has a good chance winning a grand slam title in the near future – at Wimbledon or in New York – but he simply will not allow himself to think that far ahead.

If he does, he is setting himself up for a fall and, despite his relative youth, he is far too experienced for that.

"I feel like I'm better equipped to win a grand slam this year than I was last year," he said yesterday. "And, yeah, I think I have a chance of winning, but I understand how difficult that is to do.

"It's very easy to sort of say, 'Oh, Rafa's not playing, Andy's got a much easier route to the final'. I don't view it like that at all.

"You just focus on each match at a time, the first one, and try and win one best-of-five-set match every couple of days and not get ahead of yourself. I feel like I've got a chance, but I'll have to play great to do it."

Murray had been seeded to meet Nadal in the semi-finals a week on Friday but, instead, Juan Martin Del Potro has filled the Majorcan's spot on the draw sheet.

The tall Argentine has made little gain from his elevation as he will open his account against the wily Arnaud Clement and should, by rights, meet Lleyton Hewitt in the second round. And that could be the end of him.

Del Potro has muscled his way up the rankings in the past 12 months and now stands at No 5 in the world pecking order.

But grass is not his surface and Hewitt, the 2002 champion in SW19, will know just how to make him struggle on the low bouncing surface. At 6ft 6in, bending and lunging is not Del Potro's forte.

All of this, though, flows like water off a duck's back for Murray. The bookies, the pundits and the soothsayers can dream up what they like – Murray is only thinking about his opening match on Tuesday against Robert Kendrick.

He has beaten the American three times in succession, including a 6-0, 6-0 thrashing on the grass at the Newport, Rhode Island event, three years ago.

Even so, Nadal's influence on Murray's chances at Wimbledon is plain to see. It is not so much the fact that the Scot will not have to face the champion this year but rather that losing to him last year proved the launch-pad for his current success. For all that he had worked himself harder in training than ever before and boasted a six-pack and bulging biceps last summer, his straight sets defeat to Nadal sent him scurrying back to the gym and the running track.

"I lost to Nadal comfortably and actually went away for like three or four weeks after

that and trained really, really hard over in the States," he said. "I was down in Miami in really warm conditions, because I realised that I was in good shape then but I still lost to someone like Rafa, who's probably one of the best athletes to ever play tennis.

"I needed to improve that side of my game. It was after Wimbledon that I pushed on. I just learnt a lot from the loss to Rafa. I realised I needed to get fitter and stronger. I went away and worked on it."

That hard work paid dividends just two months later when Murray beat Nadal in the semi-finals of the US Open. It was his first win over the world No 1 and it put him through to his first grand slam final. Murray had made it. He was a contender.

"It was the first time I'd beaten the No 1 in the world in a slam, and that gave me a lot of confidence, knowing that physically I was able to, you know, get to the final match of a slam," he said. "It was the first time I'd played seven matches in the two weeks. It's the first time I'd been the whole way in a grand slam."

In the ten months since that US Open win over Nadal, Murray has moved on and up. He is a constant thorn in the side of both the Spaniard – whom he beat in the final of the Rotterdam tournament this year – and Roger Federer, whom he has beaten four times since losing to the Swiss player in that US Open final. Murray could not be any more ready to take that final step and win one of the major trophies.

"I'd obviously love to win here," he said. "I enjoy playing on grass. I love playing at Wimbledon. I feel like I'm ready to win a grand slam now, whereas last year I might not have been. But I understand how difficult it is. It's not an easy thing to do. It's not like it's going to come easily. Slams don't come easily, and I'm sure the guys that have won them will tell you that. I understand how big a challenge it is."

And back at home in Manacor on the island of Majorca, Nadal knows how big that challenge is, too.

If Murray were to win in two weeks' time – or even reach the final – Nadal will not be here to see it but he will still have been a key factor in the Scot's success. And the further Murray goes in the tournament, the larger Nadal's shadow will seem.