For all the talk of Novak Djokovic’s amazing 2011 run, still undefeated with 3 wins over Federer and 2 wins over Nadal, the missing man has been Andy Murray.  When Andy Murray put in a less than stellar effort in the finals of Melbourne, it was thought that he choked another final.  While that may be perfectly true, few realized that Djokovic was going to play quite that well.  Yes, he beat Roger Federer, but it was thought Murray might keep even.  Even Murray, I suspect, didn’t expect Djokovic to play that well and much like Federer, Murray was a bit confused about how he should play Djokovic.

With a second Slam loss in a year, Murray went into a spiral much like he did back the year before.  Between Melbourne and the clay season, Murray lost in Rotterdam to Baghdatis, 6-4, 6-1.  Baghdatis is a good player, but a 6-1 second-set loss felt like apathy.  It was only the beginning.

Murray would head to Indian Wells and lose to perennial US hopeful, Donald Young.  Murray made Young’s upset look plausible, but knowing Murray and knowing Young, it seemed Murray had to come down two notches and Young played better than usual.  Young, to his credit, has been qualifying for tournaments having exhausted a lifetime supply of wildcards.

Murray would then lose to yet another triple figure American in Alex Bogomolov (and another junior, as Donald Young is the Jr to his dad’s Sr) at Miami.

Throughout, Murray seemed to keep upbeat.  He joked that he would hire 25 year old British doubles specialist Ross Hutchins for his team and would make a hasty announcement at Miami.  But  it fell on April Fool’s and many a British reporter fell for it.

The bad news for Murray was that it left him much like it did last year–needing to improve his game during the clay season.  Last year, Murray’s woes extended to Monte Carlo where he got thumped by Phillipp Kohlschreiber.  Not to say Kohlschreiber is a bad player, but Murray should keep reasonably even with him, and he barely won games.

Murray took a wildcard into Monte Carlo and stumbled into a fairly good draw off the bat.  In particular, he would face the winner of the guy who beat him in Rotterdam (Marcos Baghdatis) or Radek Stepanek.  Both would be familiar with clay, but both would be better hard court players.  Murray wasn’t going to play a true dirt-baller.

And he took advantage of that to have a surprisingly easy win 6-2, 6-4 over Radek Stepanek.  Murray is back to a hairstyle he used to sport, the longer ‘fro look he had before he had his winning ways in 2008.

Up next for Murray is the resilient Frenchman, Gilles Simon, who should prove a great test of Murray’s form (Simon also used to wear his hair long–until his rank went up and his team may have suggested a shorter haircut would be more fan-friendly).  Simon was once in the top ten, and uses his steadiness and speed, to claw his back way to the top.  Simon beat tough clay courter, Alberto Montanes, a finalist at Casablanca last week.  Often a deep run by a low-ranked player in a recent tournament yields an early loss in the next tournament.

Nadal openeed his Monte Carlo defense beating the world’s best Finnish player, Jarkko Nieminen and beat yet another left hander.  Nadal’s last lost to a lefty was Feliciano Lopez at Queen’s.

Tommy Robredo continued his mastery over Verdasco and beat him in straights.  Gasquet had an easy win over Garcia-Lopez.  Troicki, the highest-ranked Serb in the tournament, needed 3 sets to beat Fognini.  David Ferrer had an easy win over Lopez (Feliciano, not Marc).  Melzer needed 3 sets to beat the talented Dutch player, Haase.  Almagro needed a third set to beat Gonzalez (Maximo, not Fernando–who still hasn’t been seen on tour in quite some time).

Finally, Monfils won his match as did Cilic, whose opponent, Riba, retired with only a set played.