NEW YORK: Too exhausted to jump up and down or run over to the stands the way some newly crowned champions do, Andy Murray dropped his racquet to the court, crouched down gingerly and covered his mouth with his hands. A few minutes later, he took off his shoes, sat in his chair on the sideline, leaned his head back and looked into the dark New York sky.
What a relief!
The 25-year-old Scot won the US Open to earn the Grand Slam title that had eluded him the four previous times he had gotten this close. It took six minutes short of five hours on a windblown Monday night that was certainly not made for tennis.
Murray’s final against Novak Djokovic felt like three matches packed into one. After taking a two-set lead, then squandering it, then girding himself for the deciding fifth set, Murray brought the first major men’s title back to Britain since 1936, defeating the defending champion 7-6 (10), 7-5, 2-6, 3-6, 6-2.
”I cried a little bit on the court,” said Murray. ”You’re not sad. You’re incredibly happy. You’re in a little bit of disbelief because when I have been in that position many times before and not won, you do think, you know, is it ever going to happen?”
The 4 hours, 54 minutes tied a US Open final record.
”It was an incredibly tough match, and, yeah, obviously it felt great at the end,” Murray said. ”Relief is probably the best word I would use to describe how I’m feeling just now.”
Much the way he did in the start of his semifinal Saturday against David Ferrer, Djokovic came out looking completely unready to tackle the wind that blunted both players’ serves and turned dinkers and slice backhands – all of them hanging, twisting and turning in the wind – into the shots of choice. Djokovic lost serve at love in the opening game, but broke back in the seventh game en route to a tiebreaker.
Djokovic has been in seven of the last nine Grand Slam finals – and won four of them – in part because he’s got a knack for pulling out matches when things are at their bleakest.
So, when Djokovic broke once, then again, to push the second set to 5-5, it didn’t come as much of a surprise.
He lost that set. But he cruised through the next two, getting more aggressive by the minute, pushing Murray from corner to corner, not allowing him to dictate with his strange spins honed as a kid in the blustering winds of Scotland. It looked like Djokovic’s match to win.
Murray regained the momentum quickly, however, and ss the set wore on, Djokovic started moving slower and slower. Trailing 5-2, the trainer came out to work on his aching right leg.
To no avail. It turned out to be too big a hill to climb for the No. 2 seed. And so, this marks the first time since 2003 that four different men have won the Grand Slam titles.
”I really tried mentally to be out there and physically to always push myself over the limits,” Djokovic said. ”If I had won that first set and had some chances, maybe the match would go a different way. But there is no reason to go back and say ‘What if? What if?’ He’s a Grand Slam winner and he deserves to be there.” (AP)