When Nadal started his ascendancy to the top of tennis, he provided a foil to Roger Federer’s tennis.  Roger Federer was offense to Nadal’s defense.  Nadal didn’t play pure defense, but if you tried to hit him off the court, he’d come up with an amazing shot to defend.  Like a cornered animal, Nadal was more dangerous when playing defense.  And, Nadal wasn’t just a good defensive player.  If you left a floaty shot in the middle, Nadal would pounce on it like a cat to a laser pointer, pushing the ball to one sideline or the other, getting his opponent on the run.

Nadal was the first to really expose the Federer backhand, serving constantly to that side, looping high forehands to the Federer backhand.

So it was Federer hoping to hit a few great shots while Nadal would retrieve and bide his time to hit his own great shots, or attacking the Federer backhand.

When Djokovic started playing great tennis in 2011, he was basically able to play Rafa on similar terms.  Both play backboard tennis.  There are certain shots you can hit to Rafa where he’ll opt to continue to play the shot and not go for anything too big.  Djokovic began to hit shallower angles, and was willing to get into long protracted rallies with Rafa.  As they exchanged shots, Djokovic would often pull the trigger, open up the court, and go for the winner.

Djokovic’s precise strokes and Rafa’s relentless attitude lead to some of the longest matches in recent memory.  Even then, some people didn’t quite like these matches.  They were lengthy, the rallies were amazing, but short attention spans had some fans wishing someone would pull the trigger a lot sooner.  Still, Rafa had his defensive abilities, and that can be compelling tennis all by itself.

Fast forward to the current matchup between Djokovic and Murray.  Murray isn’t as used to going for offense as Federer, nor does he want to given Djokovic’s mastery of Federer.  Djokovic has an uncanny ability to take powerful shot after powerful shot and redirect.  Thus, his success over players like Berdych and even Tsonga.  Murray isn’t nearly the same kind of defender as Rafa.  He doesn’t chase down balls nearly as well, and once he reaches, he’s likely to toss up a lob (esp. on the backhand), rather than hit a solid shot.

We’re so used to Federer’s offensive brilliance or Rafa’s defense (to offense) brilliance that Murray’s strategy seems rather passive by nature.  Murray has come to the conclusion that it’s too hard to hit through Djokovic.  It requires too many big shots that are too close to the line to comfortably rely on it for winning.  Maybe a player will come that can hit these big shots (it might be Tomic, because he has an uncanny precision to squeeze hard shots in very precise locations) reliably.  Robin Soderling (remember him?) tried to beat players like Rafa by bludgeoning the ball.  But Rafa negated this strategy by looping very high shots, using the heavy spin to buy himself time to get centered on the court.  Unless players are willing to take these shots out of the air and hit it reliably in the court, such high loopers are almost always a good idea.

Murray has recently been willing to move the ball around, but he’s fighting against something he doesn’t like to do: hit down the line.  To compensate for this, Murray has been aiming his shots well inside the sidelines.  Against Federer, Murray would occasionally go for more and hit closer to the sidelines.  While this provides him some margin of safety, it also means his opponents have a chance to chase it down.

This strategy is in contrast with what Murray used against Rafa.  Against Rafa, Murray would be the aggressor making Rafa play defense.  Rafa knows he’s great at chasing shots down, and his opponents know that they can’t just exchange shots casually back and forth because Rafa will try to take control of the point.  So most of his opponents know you just attack Rafa and hope enough shots land in.  Rafa, at least, gives you chances to attack because he’s not so offensive that he’ll attack everything.   Against Djokovic, Murray is trying to avoid attacking Djokovic too much because he can redirect the ball so well, and is willing to do this more often than Rafa.

Murray was even reluctant to attack the net.  Meanwhile, because Murray was placing a lot of shots to the shallow backhand, Djokovic would sometimes step around and hit an inside-out forehand and attack the net himself.

With Murray trying not to be too offensive, and Djokovic not always attacking, there are a lot of neutral rallies without much in the way of spectacular winners.

I’m guessing this is still a transitional phase for Murray who has only gotten used to this style of play for a year.  Apparently, he used to play very aggressive on the practice court, but be unwilling to try it for real in match situations.  It’s analogous to Steffi Graf who practiced a topspin backhand, but would rarely hit it, even against players she would crush 6-0 6-1.  She could have practiced it and won a match 6-2, 6-3 instead.

Now, the injury to Murray made the match a bit of a foregone conclusion.  If Murray can’t properly run, then he can’t properly compete.  But even the first two sets, which were played in comparable conditions for both players didn’t have a lot of spectacular points.  The most interesting point was in early in the third set, a lengthy rally typical of what we’ve seen lately between Djokovic and Murray, and one that was pivotal to Djokovic taking control of the match.

Many a fan, esp. Fed fans, said they were uninterested in watching Murray-Djokovic.  They’d watch Federer-Djokovic, but Murray-Djokovic was not so compelling.  In a desire to compete with the best, Murray has had to strip the parts of his game that make him intriguing, and add parts to his game that resembles Federer without the imagination.  To be honest, some of Murray’s misses, had they made it in, would have lead to some spectacular points, but he missed a lot of these (most of them passes).

Murray will have to go back to the drawing board while Djokovic heads off to Davis Cup play on clay.

It leaves some fans waiting, with bated breath, for the return of Rafa.