The top male tennis players in the world have been appointing some ex-players as their head coaches these days. This trend was started by Andy Murray during the 2012 season when he secured the services of Ivan Lendl, the former American player who won a total of 8 Grand Slams during his career.
The no. 1 player in the world, Novak Djokovic, followed his footsteps a few days back as he announced that one of the all time German greats Boris Becker would be his coach for the upcoming season. The Swiss superstar, Roger Federer, who has been struggling with his form in recent times has already been spending time with Stefan Edberg and trying to regain his old charm back. Edberg is a former Swedish player and also Federer’s role model.
Lendl and Becker were the arch rivals during their playing days. There were 22 games played between these two out of which Lendl had won 12, while, Becker had won 10. But, whenever these two players met in the final of a Grand Slam, it was always Becker who came on top. Now, with these two guys taking charge as the coaches of the two top players in the world, there have been talks that the old rivalry might get renewed.
When Murray was asked about the top players appointing ex-greats as their coaches, he said, “It’s hard to say at the moment if it’s turning into a trend, but, it’s actually nice. The guys like Boris and Ivan who has got huge amount of experience can help you a lot.”
The latter half of the last season wasn’t that good for Murray, but, he would certainly want to put that behind him and start the new season on a fresh note.
The Davis Cup World Group draws have been revealed and Great Britain is scheduled to play USA in the opening round away from home. This is not an easy draw by any means for GB, but, their skipper Leon Smith is confident that his team is good enough to beat America on its home soil.
This will be the first occasion in the last 5 years that GB will be playing in the World Group matches.
Talking to the reporters yesterday, Smith said, “It’s not the easiest of draws for sure, but, I think USA will be a bit concerned too.”
“With Andy and a couple of quality doubles players being there, we have got a strong squad. James and Dan have improved too in the last few months. So, there is no reason why we can’t beat them in their own backyard.”
“We have got full faith in our abilities and we will enter the tie with the belief that we can pull it off.”
The last time that USA and Great Britain had taken on each other in the Davis Cup was 14 years back in 1999. It was a thrilling clash. USA went up by 2-0 first and they were looking like winning it easily. But, then, GB bounced back with a couple of victories to bring it all down to the last reverse singles match which got decided in the 5th set and it was the American player Jim Courier who sealed it to give his nation the winning lead.
When asked about that clash, Smith said, “There was a lot of drama in that tie. Unfortunately, we ended up on the wrong side, but, that’s history. Hopefully, the outcome will be in our favour this time around.”
Andy Murray has been defeated by Tomas Berdych of Czech Republic in the quarter final round of the ongoing Cincinnati Masters. Berdych won the match in the straight sets by 6-3, 6-4.
Murray has to start the defense of his US Open title in a few days’ time and this was not the result that he was looking for here at Cincinnati.
The Scot was inconsistent throughout the match. He gave his opponent a lot of opportunities and ended up suffering a shocking defeat.
In the post match interview, Murray said, “I committed a lot of mistakes. You can’t do that against a quality opponent.”
“The surface was tough. There was a bit of bounce in it and I was struggling for timing.”
Berdych who secured his first win over Murray on hard courts was looking ecstatic. The Czech player said, “You can’t let a player like Andy settle down. You need to be aggressive against him and that’s what I did.”
Murray had the chance to break Berdych’s serve in the very first game of the first set, but, he couldn’t take advantage of the break point and the Czech ended up serving out the game.
Murray held his serve in style in the next game by banging in 4 aces. The next 5 games also went with the serve and when the 7th game finished, Berdych had a lead of 4-3.
The Czech player sneaked a breakthrough in the 8th game and then, won his next service game to wrap up the set.
In the second set, Murray had a terrible start as he lost his serve in the second game to get trailed by 0-2. He never recovered from there as Berdych held his remaining serves to seal the match.
Andy Murray has been defeated by Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland in the third round of the Monte Carlo masters. Wawrinka won the match in the straight sets by 6-1, 6-2. This win took Wawrinka into the quarter finals.
This result was not expected at all. Murray and Wawrinka had played against each other 12 times before and Murray had won 8 out of those matches. Also, Murray’s form off late had been quite good. He had recently won the Sony Open and had secured a pretty easy victory in the second round match against Edouard Roger-Vasselin. He was the favourite to win against Wawrinka, that’s for sure.
But, Wawrinka played some aggressive tennis and Murray didn’t even manage to give him a good fight.
Now, this defeat will affect Murray’s world ranking. He had replaced Roger Federer as the no. 2 player in the world by defeating David Ferrer in the title round of the Sony Open, but, he couldn’t stay at that position even for a month. He will again slip down to no. 3.
In the post match interview, Murray said, “You can’t win a match after committing so many unforced errors. I gave him a lot of opportunities and he cashed on those.”
“I had practiced hard before this tournament. So, it’s really disappointing to be out of it this early.”
In the opening set, both the players won their first service games. After that, it was all Wawrinka. With three successive breakthroughs in the 3rd, 5th and 7th game, he won the set easily by 6-1.
Murray’s poor performance on his serve continued in the second set as well as he dropped his serve in the 6th and the 8th game and lost the set by 2-6.
In the quarter final round, Wawrinka will face Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France.
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January 2, 2014 2:21 pm | 
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