For a long time, the British lacked good players.  The last good singles player was a transplant, Greg Rusedski, who was Canadian, but had a English tie from one of his parents.  When he realized Canada was even worse off than the UK when it came to tennis, he fled to the relatively money-rich British Isles.  People loved Tim Henman who is a good, but not great player, perhaps someone on par with Fernando Verdasco, or a bit better.  Henman, to his credit, did reliably well at Wimbledon but struggled to beat Pete Sampras, as most players did.  The last great British player was probably Fred Perry, certainly, the last player to win a Slam.

Andy Murray, compared to every British player in between Fred Perry, has been a lot better.  Frankly, we didn’t expect Tim Henman to win a Slam as much as we hoped.  And Henman had a one last hurrah.  After years of toiling in a futile effort to win Wimbledon, Henman had a great run at the Slam he was least likely to succeed: the French Open.  In 2004, he made it to the semifinals, losing to Guillermo Coria.  2004 had to be one of the weakest years in French Open history.  Gaudio was a finalist and basically unknown.  Coria was highly favored as the number 3 seed, but choked it.  In any case, you didn’t hear much of Coria afterwards.  Argentina had 3 of 4 semifinalists that year.  All those players (except Nalbandian) are gone now.

Everyone knows that Murray is a legitimate Slam hopeful.  No one pressures Ferrer this way.  His record against the top 4 is dismal, and he can be beaten by harder hitters (say, Soderling) or more athletic players (say, Monfils).  Ferrer doesn’t possess enough weapons to reliably beat the players above him.

So frustration factor number one  is Murray does have the weapons to beat better players.  Murray started off as an intriguing player, using spins, change of pace, to confuse and befuddle his opponent.  He didn’t hit harder than his opponents, but he still won.  How did he do it?  Murray’s wins came from a combination of skills.  Murray is among the top 3 players when it comes to return of serve (Djokovic and Nadal are the other two).  He sees the ball early, and it’s generally tough to ace him.  When you can give yourself break opportunities, you give yourself chances to win.

Murray is also one of the speediest players on tour.  He anticipates the ball incredibly well and gets to shots few other players do.  Perhaps Nadal is the only other player that has similar speed.  This speed allows him to track down a lot of shots and make his opponents make mistakes.

Finally, Murray can hit hard.  Against players like Nadal and occasionally Federer, Murray brings out his power game.  When his game is on, Murray can hit winners from anywhere in the court.  He may hit the hardest two-handed backhand in the game.  But…and this is an important “but”, Murray doesn’t play this style all the time.  He is more of a percentage player.  Players like Federer (or Berdych) may make more unforced errors, but their game is built around aggression.  They know they want to hit hard (and for Berdych, he needs to hit hard to compensate for some speed issues) and go for the lines.  Murray, by contrast, doesn’t hit hard unless he wants to.  This may be stubbornness.  He may believe that variety is the way to win.  He had a wrist injury some number of years ago, so maybe that impacts his decision to go for his shots, and minimize the chances it will happen again (witness del Potro’s hard hitting style possibly contributing to injury).

OK, if Murray is so great, why doesn’t he win more?  Clearly, there are limitations to his game, and I think some of these limitations are more technical and somewhat mental too.  Let’s start looking at some of his deficiencies.

First and perhaps more importantly, Murray hits with less spin than other players.  For as aggressive as Federer is, he still imparts quite a bit of spin.  Federer’s aggression also means he’s looking for opportunities to end the point quickly, so he doesn’t need to be nearly as steady as the remaining top four.  By contrast, Murray does get into longer rallies.  Although he is branded a counter-puncher, he’s only marginally steadier than his steadiest opponents.   He hits flatter than his opponents, and so his margin for error is a lot less.  When his game is on, he is as steady as they come (though not as steady as Djokovic).  But when his game is off, he sprays shots.

Nadal, of course, hits more spin than anyone and that spin gives him options.  If he’s not striking the ball well, he’ll loop the ball up higher and hit to the center of the court.  But Nadal is so precise and practices so much that his game rarely dips the way Murray’s game can dip.

Second, Murray hits with less pace than the other players, and can be less purposeful with his shots.  It’s instructional to understand “purposeful”.  If you watch a player like David Ferrer, his goal, against most players is to work his inside out forehand to his opponent’s backhand (usually a righty).  Ferrer can then switch it up to go inside-in if need be.  One reason Ferrer is so successful (beyond being quick and steady) is because he can play to his patterns and be aggressive.  Nadal does this even better.  He wants to get his opponent to a corner and either attack that corner or switch directions.  Nadal wants you to be on the run, so he can eventually hit a a tough shot that elicits a weak response.  By contrast, a player like Roddick is more about moving the ball around.  Neither his forehand nor his backhand is penetrating enough to apply the tactic that Ferrer or Nadal uses.

To some extent, Murray is more like Roddick.  He moves the ball around and is waiting for the error, but the problem is, without heavier topspin, he can’t always outlast his opponent.  And, he’s not always comfortable pulling the trigger unless that’s his mindset from the beginning.  Murray tends to be at his most vulnerable at the start of a tournament.  More than once, he’s said that his legs weren’t moving.  As the tournament moves along, somehow his movement improves, until he’s playing decent tennis at the end.  You don’t see as much of that from Nadal or Federer or Djokovic.

Another Murray weakness is hitting down the line.  Murray loves hitting crosscourt, and he has great confidence when he does this.  However, he’s nervous when he goes down the line.  By contrast, Djokovic loves going down the line on either forehand or backhand.  This gives Djokovic a lot of choices where to hit his groundstrokes.  He knows he can “go for it” down the line to get a quick winner if push comes to shove.  Murray is less confident in this shot (it seems like he’s doing an exercise since Lendl joined the team where he alternates hitting down the line and crosscourt to build up this skill) which means opponents can lean crosscourt when they get into rallies.

Finally, you have to look at the Murray serve.  Andy Murray has an effective first serve–when it goes in.  However, for a guy his height, Murray misses a lot of first serves.  Part of it, admittedly, is that he takes chances on first serve.  He wants to win free points because he feels he can still hold even when he puts his second serve in play.   Which leads to second serves.  Murray is less precise off the second serve.  He tends to spin it in the middle of the box.  While he wins his fair share of second serves, it isn’t much of a weapon.  Both of these are well-known deficiencies.  Murray hasn’t been able to up his first serve percentage on a regular basis, though he has improved the pace on the shot.

The frustration factor has to come from high expectations of Murray’s game.  Everyone feels he has the ability to win a Slam, but I think it’s a big ask to beat two out of Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic though surprisingly, he seems to be doing his best against Djokovic, and he has done well against Federer historically.   The difference lately, for Federer, is that his game has actually improved.  In particular, Federer continues to improve that backhand.  His newest twist is the sharp angle crosscourt backhand which he can take from about 3/4 court and whip like a passing shot.  He doesn’t use it a lot, but when he does, it’s awfully impressive.  I’d say Federer is hitting better now than he has in a few years.  Whether that translates to victory over Nadal and Djokovic, I can’t say.

But I think Murray has definitive deficiencies in his game compared to the other three, and that he is required to play a more aggressive brand of tennis when he faces the rest, rather than play this style against everyone.  There’s a sense that Nadal, Djokovic, and Federer can achieve their best play or close to it more reliably than Murray.

People draw parallels from Murray to Lendl and his struggles to reach the top of the game, but it’s not quite accurate.  Lendl, in his day, was the hardest hitter off the ground.  It might be comparable to del Potro not winning titles.

Personally, I think his loss to Garcia-Lopez is no big deal.  What will be more important is how he rebounds at Miami.  This past year, Murray lost a bit early in Montreal (to Anderson), but went to win Cincinnati.  His concern was that he peaked too early and didn’t play his best at the US Open (where he lost early two years in a row, to Cilic and Wawrinka).  I think Murray is looking to pace himself as well.  He’ll prefer to play better at Miami, and just focus on doubles (playing with brother Jamie) for now.

Murray is frustrating, but I think the players ahead of him still have more tools than Murray and more reliable ones.  At his best, Murray can beat any of them, but his game has to be humming.