IF Andy Murray is to win the French Open for the first time, he will have to deal with the stress of competition and all the little things that come at players off the court.
The debate about exactly why he and Amelie Mauresmo parted ways at the beginning of this month can’t have helped his preparations and when he found himself two sets down to 37-year-old Czech Radek Stepanek on Monday evening, he was in a big hole.
But having won the third set and led 4-2 in the fourth when they were forced off court by darkness, Murray showed every ounce of his fighting spirit yesterday to squeeze through 3-6, 3-6, 6-0, 6-3, 7-5 after what he described as a “stressful” hour-and-a-half.
In a tense final set, Murray was two points from defeat on two occasions but as so often, the Scot found a way to win, the ninth time in his career he has come from 2-0 down to win.
That puts him second on the all-time list, headed only by former world No.1 Boris Becker and the American Aaron Krickstein, who both managed it 10 times.
“It's an extremely important match for me,” a clearly emotional Murray said. “It could turn out to be one of the biggest wins of my career. It may not, also, but to get through that match, it was really, really important for me.”
Murray will be back on court today against the French wildcard, Mathias Bourgue, ranked 164, a match which should allow him to relax.
The emotions of the win were evident when he held his post-match press conference yesterday and especially when he was confronted with the debate about Mauresmo.
It all stemmed from an interview Mauresmo gave to L’Equipe, which ran on Saturday, the day after Murray gave an interview to the same paper, which did not run until Monday.
Though she clearly stated that balancing motherhood and career meant she was unable to commit to the 25 weeks Murray wanted, Mauresmo also said that she had found it hard to understand his tendency to rant towards his player box.
Yesterday, Murray said he had not “hit back” and that his behaviour was not the reason for their split.
“Me and Amelie have a very good relationship and I don't think it's fair to try to say otherwise,” he began. “For sure, when we were working together, we discussed many things on the court, and there were times when, like with all of my coaches, they said: ‘you need to concentrate more on the match, stop directing your frustration at the box and being distracted from what's going on on the court’.
“To say that the reason that we stopped working together is because of my behaviour on the court, that is not true. [When] we discussed it in Madrid [earlier this month], what was said was the fact that we literally are spending hardly any time together in a three-month period right before major events coming up. And she was not able to help me during that period. That's what happened.”
Murray said he hoped Mauresmo and others could see the positive things he brings to his game when in the heat of the battle.
“I have worked and continued to try to work on that side of things on the court,” he said. “But it can be frustrating for me when it’s saying that someone is necessarily complex or looking at the negative things. There are also some good attributes that I have on the court, too.
“I displayed them in abundance today, in my opinion, and yesterday. I fought extremely hard from a very, very difficult position. Yes, I was getting frustrated, but I gave everything to try to win today's and yesterday's match and got myself out of a situation that not all players would have been able to get themselves out of.
“I fight through to the end in all of the matches. Yes, for sure I can make improvements on the court. No question about that. But I also do some good things, as well. You know, I need to sometimes balance that up a little bit.”
Leon Smith, Murray’s coach when he was a teenager, now Davis Cup captain and a long-time friend, backed up the No.2 seed’s feelings.
“It is a fine balance, he is a perfectionist,” Smith told BBC 5 Live. “It’s the nature of him, he wants to win any way he can. With Amelie, we all saw first-hand, practice sessions, that they got on off the court, dinners, they got on great. The bottom line is that there wasn’t enough time for them to spend together.”
That ought to be that; now Murray can focus on the main task at hand.
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