Everyone says David Ferrer is a tough out. He doesn’t have the weapons to blow anyone off the court. He is quick enough to chase most shows down. His forehand is good enough to pressure all but the fastest players. His serve is adequate, but he doesn’t get a lot of free points. If Ferrer has a weakness, it’s that he can be overpowered and that he has to work for pretty much every point. A player like Federer gets free points off his serve, and that makes holding serve a lot easier.
And it goes to show that tennis is a rhythm thing. When Andy Murray beat Rafael Nadal in the finals of Tokyo, he zoned. He hit hard shot after hard shot, and barely missed a ball. He hit big serves when he needed to.
Against Ferrer, Murray could never get his game on track. When Murray is off his game, he starts to spray his shots. He’s a steady enough player, but he lacks the spin of Federer, Djokovic, or Murray though he is certainly capable of it. Every time he’d wind up to hit a big shot, he’d hit it wide or long, or he would bail and drop-shot. So, Murray would have to dial it back and play more conservative ball. And when he did that, he was playing Ferrer’s kind of game.
And Murray certainly had his chances. He was getting breaks. Indeed, twice in the second set, he got a break lead. But he never looked comfortable on his own serve. He looked a bit casual, half-volleying shots, and never quite dictated off the ground. Meanwhile, David Ferrer did what he needed to to secure the win. He played his usual grinding tennis, ran down lots of shots, and didn’t give Murray too many easy balls.
Just to show how the match was going, there were 8 breaks of serve with Ferrer getting 5 breaks and Murray 3. This is incredibly high, especially Murray. The serve really hurt Murray who only hit 44%. Last year, Ferrer had a bad serving match and lost easily to Murray. Normally, Murray serves about mid 50%, and when he can get it that high, he holds a lot more. Even with this, Murray was not winning a lot of points off first serves, getting only a little over half the points. Normally, Murray can win about 80% of his first serves.
At the start of the second set, Murray took an injury timeout, mostly to get himself stretched out. Murray’s attitude seemed lackadaisical for lack of a better word, and he never seemed to get on track with his play.
With this loss, he is now in serious trouble. He need to win the next two singles, and one of those will be against Djokovic, while the other is against Berdych, both guys that give Murray trouble. This should give Federer a lot of hope that he can end the year as number 3. He has 700 points to make up over Murray, and Federer has already won his match and picked up 200 points, so the lead is now 500 points over Murray.
Final score: Ferrer wins, 64, 75.