Tennis World english 39 Tennis World EN 39 | Page 5

by
Marco
Di
Nardo

anyone else on Tour.

Monday, November 7, 2016. The day that
Andy Murray became the 26th player to

At the beginning of 2009, Murray was

hold the world number one ranking. It is
certainly a day that the Brit will never
forget. For a decade, he has been near the
top of men’s tennis, beating the best
players in the world and winning important
tournaments, even Slams, but he was
never able to overcome that final hurdle
and become the top player himself. That
is, until now.
It all started in the second half of 2008,
when a young Andy surprised the tennis
world by reaching the quarter-finals at
Wimbledon. He did so by beating the likes
of Richard Gasquet in the second round,
coming back from two sets and a break
down to eventually score the most
important win of his career up to that point.
From that point onwards, Murray has been
a consistent presence near the top of the
ATP Tour. Within just a few months of
Wimbledon he would win his first Masters
1000 title, in Cincinnati, and also reach his
first Slam final at the US Open. He also
went on to qualify for the Tennis Masters
Cup in Shanghai, and defeated Andy
Roddick, Gilles Simon and Roger Federer
in the round robin stage, qualifying for the
semi-finals without losing a match. In the
semi-finals, however, exhausted by the
exploits of the previous months, he lost to
Nikolay Davydenko. But he still ended the
year ranked number four in the world, and
was on an upward trajectory unmatched by

considered by many to be the favorite to
win the Australian Open. At the World
Tennis Championship, an exhibition event
held before the start of the season, Murray
beat Federer in the semi-finals and then
Nadal in the final. He followed that by
beating Federer again in Doha and
winning the title there, overcoming Roddick
in the final. All of this added to the
narrative that he would win the Australian
Open, and as the tournament started it
was one of the main storylines of the
fortnight.
But Murray’s dream of Slam glory would
be cut very short at the hands of a
Spaniard – and not Rafael Nadal, for a
change. Fernando Verdasco, for the first
time playing the sort of tennis he would
become famous for over the next two
years, unleashed one of the most powerful
performances ever seen Down Under,
soundly defeating the Scot in the fourth
round. The year which should have seen
him rise to the very top of the sport quickly
turned into a nightmare, as Murray did not
reach a single Slam final the entire
season. Yet despite his poor showing at
Slams, and thanks to underperformance
by some of his rivals, he reached the
number 3 spot in August of 2009. He
would soon fall back to 4, but his brief stint
in the Top 3 no doubt provided him with
confidence and motivation for the rest of
the year, as well as the following season.