Tennis World english 39 Tennis World EN 39 | Page 18

Andy
Murray,
A
Long
Time
Coming
by Giorgio Giannaccini

The
tennis
season
started
with
one
certainty:
the
domination
of
Novak
Djokovic.
It
ended
with
another,
almost
unthinkable
one:
the
usurpation
of
the
throne
by
Andy
Murray.
It
seems
just
like
yesterday
when
Andy
Murray
lost
yet
another
Slam
final
to
Novak
Djokovic
in
Melbourne.
It
has
become
an
almost
yearly
ritual,
the
humiliation
of
Murray
in
Australia
at
the
hands
of
the
Serb.
This
time
around,
the
blame
was
placed
by
most
pundits
at
the
feet
of
Amelie
Mauresmo,
the
stopgap
coach
who
was
not
up
to
the
task
of
extracting
Murray’s
best
tennis
from
him.

Indeed,
after
another
failure
Down
Under,
followed
shortly
after
by
Mauresmo’s
departure,
nobody
was
paying
much
attention
to
Murray.
He
had
been
mediocre
for
the
better
part
of
three
years,
winning
tournaments
here
and
there
but
almost
always
losing
to
his
main
rivals,
especially
on
the
sport’s
bigger
stages.

Instead,
attention
focused

on
Djokovic
in
the
early
part
of
2016,
especially
after
he
waltzed
to
Slam
victories
in
both
Melbourne
and
Paris.
The
tennis
world
was
alive
with
chatter
that
Djokovic
would
do
something
that
only
one
man,
Rod
Laver
in
1969,
has
ever
done
in
the
Open
era:
win
the
calendar
Grand
Slam.
Pundits
were
falling
over
each
other
to
predict
just
this
outcome.
It
was
hardly
a
risky
prediction,
especially
with
Federer
and
Nadal
racked
by
injury
and
mostly
absent
from
the
Tour.
But
as
the
spotlight
was
burning
through
Djokovic
in
anticipation
of
his
historic
season,
Murray
was
quietly
plugging
away,
improving
every
week.
His
performance
during
the
clay
season
was
particularly
impressive
and

surprising,
with
Murray
beating
Nadal
in
Monte
Carlo,
reaching
the
final
in
Madrid
and
winning
the
tournament
in
Rome.
He
even
reached
the
final
at
the
French
Open,
a
concept
that
would
have
been
utterly
foreign
just
a
few
short
years
ago.
He
followed
that,
of
course,
with
a
victory
at
Wimbledon
and
gold
at
the
Olympics.
A
loss
at
Flushing
Meadows
in
the
quarter-finals
hardly
seemed
to
matter.
Murray
had
enjoyed
a
brilliant
season
already,
and
even
had
he
lost
every
match
until
the
end
of
the
year
it
would
hardly
have
stained
his
campaign.

But
that
loss
turned
out
only
to
be
a
minor
speedbump,
as
the
Scott
went
on
to
victory