Wimbledon - Murray battles to epic win
Eurosport - Tue, 30 Jun 13:32:00 2009
World number three Andy Murray came through an epic clash 2-6 6-3 6-3 5-7 6-3 against Swiss 19th seed Stanislas Wawrinka to book his place in the last eight at Wimbledon.
On a day when the unpredictable English weather caused the roof to be closed on Centre Court for the first time, it took all Murray's strength and resilience to come through a match that did not finish until 10.41 UK time.
"That was pretty special," Murray told the BBC in a courtside interview. "I thought Stan played a great match, the standard he set at the start of the match was hard to keep up with.
"I was getting tired at the end, I'm pretty sure this is the latest finish at Wimbledon. Always when you play indoors it's great, but when you have 15,000 supporting you it makes it extra special so thanks a lot."
The British number one got off to a calamitous start, losing his serve in the opening game of the match before being broken again minutes later as the Swiss raced in to a 4-0 lead.
Murray finally got onto the scoreboard in the fifth game of the match, but Wawrinka's serving remained impregnable as he closed out a superbly impressive first set 6-2.
With the crowd silenced it seemed like the match had the makings of a massive disappointment as, even though Murray's game improved, his opponent kept up his dazzling tennis in what quickly became one of the best matches of the tournament so far.
The players went blow-for-blow until the eighth game of the second set, when the Scot finally got the break of serve that his string of extravagant cross-court winners and deft volleys deserved.
Murray closed out the set comfortably, and continued to look solid in the next - unlike the Swiss number two, whose unforced error count started to run out of control just as his stream of winners started to dry up.
With the game tipping towards the Scot it was no surprise when he broke in both the seventh and ninth games of the third set to take control of the match.
And as the fourth set began Murray looked to be cruising towards victory, consistently all-but-unchallenged on his own serve and pushing hard on his opponent's serve.
As the set progressed, however, Wawrinka once again found the timing that had deserted him, earning break points against the Scot at 3-3 and 4-4.
Murray came back strongly to earn his own chances to break with superb shotmaking - including one crucial, dipping winner to earn a break point that landed almost on Wawrinka's feet, despite the Swiss being right by the net - but it was the Swiss who got the break after an epic game at 5-5 ended with Murray finding the net.
The 19th seed held serve with a crushing ace in the next game to force a deciding set.
Murray got the fifth set off to the perfect start, breaking in just the second game to race out to a 3-0 lead as the Swiss player looked to be running out of steam.
A hold to 15 with an ace down the centre of the court seemed to rejuvenate Wawrinka as he broke back in the fifth game with a stunning forehand passing shot while Murray noticeably tightened up.
But the Scot's superior fitness and conditioning came to the rescue in the final stages of the set and he broke back in the seventh game with a ferocious forehand winner down the line that beat Wawrinka for pace.
The Scot then served out the set to 15, winning with another forehand down the line, before sinking to his knees and curling up on the floor in exhaustion.
Murray will next face Spanish wildcard Juan Carlos Ferrero, who swept into the last eight by downing French eighth seed Gilles Simon 7-6(4) 6-3 6-2.
Ferrero, the 2003 French Open champion who grew up playing on clay, took a tight first set 7-4 on the tiebreak in a little over an hour.
It was something of a breeze thereafter for the Spaniard, who was a surprise quarter-finalist at Wimbledon in 2007 but now looks perfectly at home on grass.
The second set took 31 minutes and Ferrero took a 4-1 lead in the third before wrapping it up in just 25 minutes, with Simon producing far too many unforced errors to stay in touch.
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Comment 236 - 255 of 255
WELL DONE, ANDY! ALL THE BEST TOMORROW!
I don't believe my eyes, at last some decent posts about TENNIS.
All These Prats who mke sad remarks and use foul laungauge are all brain dead to all of you all I can say is ask your mothers what went wrong that u are such a waste of space. jealous I would say. get alife eh.
Good news Andy, i hope you win the title.
Thanks to those that wrote good decent comments.
(237),inverkenny. I'm confident most English people will be supporting 'Andy Murray', he being a fellow of the same island.
Britains Shame : The |Fuc.kin English !!!
michelle lie.berman23 post 255 ! i hope ur next sh.ite is a hedgehog u u,gly english wh.ore
257 and 252,my hat to you,well written and passionate,a pleasure to read.you've probably raised the bar the bar too high for a proper challenge,then again,anyone who tries will surely be wrong
it would be fitting after all to have a Murray/Federer final,and The Scot's talent powered up and fuelled by the huge support of a roaring one sided loving crowd might prove a mountain to climb for the Swiss Maestro,of course Switzerland is full of mountains,and fighting the crowd off is not really new for Federer as he faced Bagdhatis in Australia's final ,roaring greek-cypriot and greeks a large community there raising the Cypriot player to steal a set from the then absolute master at his top form.Can this compare to an British crowd enflammed by one of their own,probably not,and Mount Everest is not part of the Swiss Alps either,so i would tip Murray to win in a 55/45 odds against my man Federer,if both can reach the final,we'd be truly lucky and might witness an even better clash than last year's if that is at all possible.I,for one,pray for such a final,and will support you know who as hard as i can. See you there,fans
yet again I find myself reading comments nothing to do with the subject of this blog which is TENNIS. Again people are using this comments page to be vitriolic to one another.
if you don't have a comment on the match, don't comment. if you read somthing you don't like because it racial or ethnically wrong and you are upset, don't lower yourselve's to the level's of others; wether you are a Scot or English. I read this page for other peoples views on the match not their politics.
Regarding Murray being arrogant, he probably is, but if he wasn't, he would not make those extravagant passing shots or returns of serve. Its part of what makes a great player. You can think of many sportsmen who had or have the same arrogance. Henry and Ronaldo in football have it, as did platini and Cantona. Federa has a certain arrogance when he plays shots that have to be seen to be believed.
I believe Murray can get to the final, but he will have to use all of his natural tallent and arrogance to get there. Each of his games will be difficult as at the other end of the court will be a player who will display the same arrogance in the parts of their game they are best at.
So I say long live arrogance for if there was no arrogance sport would lapse into mediocrity and become dull and boring.
But I don't think he is an arrogant person, though he smile a bit more but forgive me if I am wrong he did smile after his win at queens, but it was job done. He is after all else a professional player and the mark of a good professional is a grand slam win, which is what he wants.
He is lucky.Next match his luck will run out.
If Murray does somehow get through to the final lets hope Federa shuts the lound mouth Scot up - God, why does England have to put up with the arrogant scot, haven't we got enough with Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, and the majority of the labour government? They all seem to be scots - chop their heads off Queenie!!
So well put NO. 75 - YOU DESERVE A MEDAL YOURSELF and a kiss from me x -
Its almost like he planned this, funny how last year at the exact same stage he was taken to 5 sets against Richard (although he was taking drugs lol).
WELL DONE ANDY ALL THE BEST WITH FERREO TOMORROW
There is always a great grass-court player who unexpectedly hits top form with nothing to lose at Wimbledon and last night that player was Wawrinka . His bold, uninhibited shot selection and devil may care attitude would have made him a tough opponent for anyone. For a 22 year old Andy Murray has improved his game to a very high standard, hhence his World No3 ranking, and also shown he can cope mentally with long hard fought matches which will stand him in good stead for the games ahead of him. To cope with that high standard of play along with the intolerable burden of Britain's expectation of a Wimbledon Crown I think he deserves the highest praise and acclaim. As a Scot his passion for the game is also showing, but this is surely a great asset and it's great tto see his mother showing some passion for her sons also. I say sons because at least one or two of you have frowned on her for only being behind Andy but the other day she left her seat in Centre Court to go watch Jamie in his doubles match and equally urge him to win, which he did. So good on you Andy you have come a long way in a short period of time to become the best British tennis player since Fred Perry himself. You may or may not win Wimbledon this year but you will win it. We're behind you all the way! Sandra.
John D Comment 229 Well said Matey My sentiments exactly I fail to see how these idiots find Murray arrogant maybe they can explain and I will agree/dissagree but if pulling one out of the hat like this is arrogant then as you say so are ALL Competitors in every sport after all they are COMPETING !!
u only find us grumpy when a minority ( i quote a minority ) of bitter english people spout their bile against our proud country
There is always a great grass-court player who unexpectedly hits top form with nothing to lose at Wimbledon and last night that player was Wawrinka . His bold, uninhibited shot selection and devil may care attitude would have made him a tough opponent for anyone. For a 22 year old Andy Murray has improved his game to a very high standard, hhence his World No3 ranking, and also shown he can cope mentally with long hard fought matches which will stand him in good stead for the games ahead of him. To cope with that high standard of play along with the intolerable burden of Britain's expectation of a Wimbledon Crown I think he deserves the highest praise and acclaim. As a Scot his passion for the game is also showing, but this is surely a great asset and it's great tto see his mother showing some passion for her sons also. I say sons because at least one or two of you have frowned on her for only being behind Andy but the other day she left her seat in Centre Court to go watch Jamie in his doubles match and equally urge him to win, which he did. So good on you Andy you have come a long way in a short period of time to become the best British tennis player since Fred Perry himself. You may or may not win Wimbledon this year but you will win it. We're behind you all the way!
HOLD UP!!!
YOU CAN'T CONDEMN A WHOLE NATION!!!
ALL COUNTRIES HAVE IDIOTS AND FOOTBALL THUGS BUT YOU CAN'T MAKE IT OUT THAT THE WHOLE DAMN COUNTRY IS LIKE THAT!!! SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND BOTH HAVE GOOD PEOPLE!!
I DON'T PARTICULARLY LIKE MURRAY BECAUSE I HAVE NEVER SEEN HIM SMILE WHICH QUITE FRANKLY MAKES ME SICK!!! EVEN WHEN HE WON QUEENS!!!!! ... BUT I DON'T BELIEVE ALL SCOTS ARE GRUMPY LIKE HIM!!!
no wonder us scots despise u !!! johnny 12 u talk about arrogance ? u english are the most arrogant and hated nation in europe, at least when us scots go abroad we are welcomed ,not like, u fat balding thuggish bulldogs who cause nothing but bother .. i rest my case
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