Recap: Murray vs. Djokovic

In the end, this match boiled down to the number of times Murray was able to escape dangerous situations on his own serve.  The stats will show that both Murray and Djokovic had 4 break opportunities each, but Murray saved all 4 while Djokovic only saved 2 of 4.  Murray was a bit cranky during this match, one of the few where he seemed unhappy, but managed to win.  Ivan Lendl is, apparently, playing a tournament in the States.  This goes to show you how different Lend’s relationship with Murray is than, say, Brad Gilbert’s whose omnipresence seemed to stifle nearly everyone he’s worked with outside of Andre Agassi.

For my money, despite the lack of never-ending tension from the Federer-del Potro match, the Murray-Djokovic match was more exciting to watch, mostly because the two play so much better off the ground, and are more even match.  Were the Federer-del Potro match played with a courtesy groundstroke to start off the point, del Potro’s power would have been a bit too much for Federer.  Federer’s serve saved him time and again.  At times, del Potro struggled with seeing the serve.  Meanwhile, if del Potro got in trouble and his serve didn’t bail him out, his groundstrokes often would.

Federer had to alter his normal playing patterns.  He prefers to work the shots to hit an inside out forehand as a putaway.  But Federer seemed to lighten up on the pace, trying to hit softer shots than he normally does and more shots up the middle backhand side.  I think the goal was to avoid hitting wide to del Potro’s forehand where he can hit an exceptionally hard crosscourt shot.  Justin Gimelstob said del Potro had the best running forehand since Sampras, and that seems to be true.

What eventually broke down del Potro was fitness.  Federer wanted to play very patient and wait for his moments to break, while still trying to stay focused on his own serve and not get broken.

In the Murray-Djokovic match, Murray has been working on his down the line shots.  He’s never been tremendously confident with this, thus his preference to hit crosscourt shots, but working with Lendl, he’s learned to hit down the line without hitting near the line.  For the most part, he aim’s several feet in, and he hits it with less pace.  The goal is simply to change direction, not to win the point, but it’s a clever way to work on the shot to build enough confidence and go for a big shot.  Murray still isn’t supremely confident when he pulls the trigger and still misses, but chalk that up to a work in progress.

Djokovic, for his part, seemed to have lost that confidence that made him such a dominant number 1 last year.  It’s not much of a difference, but just enough to affect a few points here and there.  When Djokovic was beating Nadal, he would get engaged in long rallies, many which went in the Serb’s favor.  This year, he’s been a bit less patient than he used to be, probably concerned about the beating his body took that left him less than optimal after the US Open.

Murray’s been trying to balance the power that he’s capable of and the finesse that he’s liked.  As he’s played in Slams, his style has become both more aggressive, and willing to play the finesse game, though more notably at Wimbledon than at the Olympics.  Murray certainly had chances to end the second set earlier, but he did eventually get through.

Unlike the other participants, Murray is also playing mixed doubles.  Djokovic and Federer opted to play doubles.  While Federer made it one round, both Djokovic and Murray lost in their opening round in doubles.  Murray, however, has won 3 matches in mixed doubles with Laura Robson, a junior Wimbledon winner.  All three matches has gone to a champions tiebreak with the British duo winning all three.  The finals will feature the Belarussian duo of Max Mirnyi, a top doubles player pairing with Daniel Nestor this year, and Victoria Azarenka.  Mirnyi is the more experienced doubles player while Azarenka is better in singles than Robson, so the Brits will have their hands full.

Bronze Medal: Djokovic vs. del Potro

Despite being highly ranked, these two have not met that many times: five times in total.  del Potro’s only victory came at the Davis Cup semis right after the US Open when Serbia, down 2-1 to Argentina having played with Tipsarevic and Troicki, felt they had to use Novak Djokovic.  Djokovic played gamely for about half a set, but when a quick break wasn’t imminent, del Potro began to pull away, and Djokovic felt he had no choice but to retire.

Djokovic never played del Potro when del Potro had his best year: on hard courts in 2009.  Then, del Potro was out in 2010 and spent 2011 trying to regain his game.

On the one hand, del Potro just lost a heart-breaking match against Roger Federer.  There’s a question whether he can emotionally recover to play Djokovic.  On the other, del Potro really did pretty well off the ground against Federer, so if he can stay emotionally positive, I believe he can keep this match interesting and more than competitive.  While Djokovic didn’t seem nearly as flustered playing Murray as he did playing Federer, he still seemed off his game.  Obviously, Djokovic is still a very good player, and he kept the match close as well.  The margins are close at this level, so any improvements a player can make can be enough to distinguish between victory and defeat.

I think it will be hard for Djokovic to get up emotionally for a bronze medal, but I also think he doesn’t want to leave the Olympics without a medal.  At the same point, four years ago, del Potro was maturing just a hair too late, thus forced to play in Europe and the US while players like Nalbandian were playing for the Argentine flag.  del Potro has more incentive to win this, but the length of the match might hurt his chances in the bronze round.

I like Djokovic to win this match, but I feel it has the chance to be a compelling match.

Gold medal round: Federer vs. Murray

This is a rematch of the Wimbledon final that was played only a month ago.  Some may believe that Roger Federer, who returned back to number 1 after tying Pete Sampras’s record Wimbledon wins, would have the advantage once again, but there are reasons to believe that Murray might be able to change the winner.

First, Federer played a much longer match than Murray did.  Since Federer’s style is not the same as, say, Nadal or Djokovic, and the match was played on grass, the fatigue factor is not quite the same as a lengthy match on clay.  Even so, Federer has already pulled out of the Toronto event next week citing fatigue.

Second, Federer had to play a peculiar version of his game to take down del Potro.  del Potro’s attempt to get back to the top has taken an unusual path.  Rather than try to return back to his game by going back to pure power, del Potro worked on his steadiness so he could trade lengthy rallies with the steadiest of players.  Now that he’s there, he’s starting to use more of his power.  Federer knows he can’t chase a well-hit del Potro forehand, so he tried to limit the angles del Potro could hit and hope that hitting off-pace shots combined with power shots would derail the Argentine.

By contrast, when he played in the semis of Wimbledon, Roger played the style he wanted to play to beat Novak Djokovic.  In particular, the third set was critical.  After the lightning fast first two sets that was short on rallies, the third set really had high quality hitting.  Federer was doing a great job winning rallies on his serve.  He was waiting for the opportunity to hit great off the ground on Djokovic’s serve which he eventually did, especially with great exchanges on the backhand.

Those two sets really got Roger grooved hitting the way he wanted to hit and set him up to play well against Andy Murray in the finals.

So, the semis at Wimbledon appeared to set up Federer for the finals.  I’m not sure the Olympics has done that for Federer this go around where he modified his strategy to avoid power exchanges with del Potro.  It may, however, mean that Federer wants to try something different.

On the positive side for Federer, he’s serving really well.  del Potro seemed a bit befuddled returning serve.  When Federer was struggling with his game the last Olympics back in 2008, he went back to the drawing board.  He said he really wanted to work on his serve.  The key for Federer is to make sure his strength stays a strength.

The stats showed Federer served nearly 70% which is good for him.  He converted about 75% on his first serve which is somewhat low for him, but shows the level of competition in del Potro.  He also won a little over 60% on his first serve showing how well he protected his serve.  He also threw in 24 aces to maybe a dozen for del Potro.

The Murray-Djokovic match was statistically very close.  Both made about the same number of winners, aces, errors.  The only significant difference was the number of points won, but other than that, it was a pretty close match, as close as the 75 75 would suggest.

The one last advantage for Murray is that he’s seen what works and what doesn’t and has had time to devise something to throw at Federer.  That, and the home court advantage with a crowd that’s likely to be far rowdier than the one he had at Wimbledon.  Murray likened the crowd to one you’d find at a rock concert.

I think Federer will have confidence going into it, but I think Murray has to break through at some point, and his game seems to be pretty close to being there.