Andy Murray: can he slam?
Will 2009 be the year that Andy Murray blossoms into our greatest tennis player for a generation?
It wasn’t a bad beginning to the season for Andy Murray. Successive wins against James Blake, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal meant that he has three top ten scalps in his pocket before the season had barely began. Along the way he scooped the Capitala World Tennis Championship trophy and the Qatar Open before he headed towards Australia for the first slam of the year as white hot favourite.
But a fourth round defeat to Fernando Verdasco meant that Murray was dumped out of the competition before the action had really begun. Admired turned critics over night. They questioned whether Murray is ready, or good enough to compete at the very highest level alongside Federer, Nadal and Novak Djorkovic.
Murray is already generating as much excitement in British tennis as Henman did a decade ago. Then, with a clutch of near-misses at Wimbledon, Henman made British tennis exciting again for a generation that scarcely knew what the third round of a tournament felt like.
Murray certainly has the potential to be even better, and whilst the tabloids will indulge in sensationalism: playing him up and dismissing his chances in equal measure, the more intelligent can comfort themselves with the prospect of a decade’s worth of match-winning from the young Scot.
It’s easy to remember that Andy Murray is still just 21 years old. Can he win one of the slams? The answer from all quarters is a confident ‘yes’. But with Nadal and Federer about, it isn’t going to be easy.
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