For Andy Murray the infernal three-pronged
defensive formation remains intact, still stopping him from joining the true
legends of the All England Club. Even if you get past the dreaded centre backs
of Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic there is still the sweeper to prevent you in
the form of the astonishing Federer.
But does anyone doubt that Murray is also a
magnificent player? In any other era he would surely have ended a drought of
British male singles champions at Wimbledon that will shortly mark its 80th
anniversary.
Those who do cannot have been paying much attention
during this 4-6, 7-5, 6-3, 6-4 defeat, played half outside and half indoors,
spanning four hours and taking three hours and 24 minutes of breathtaking
action to complete.
Federer loves playing indoors and, for a brief while, you wondered if Perry was giving the celestial powers a nudge by getting the weather to behave better than expected, allowing two hours of play with the roof open.
Maybe he wanted his potential successor to enjoy
the best environment in which to tackle the Swiss master, maybe he just did not
want his view obscured from on high.
But the underlying comfort for the 30-year-old
Federer was the essential truth that it is far easier to go from winning your
16th Grand Slam to your 17th than from zero to one. You could see it in their
reactions at the end.
When Murray rifled his final forehand into the tramlines Federer only half fell to the floor, propping himself up on the side before reclining entirely on the turf.
There were no tears, no climb to the players’ box.
With yet another Grand Slam title he has put himself further away from his
nearest current challenger, Nadal, and silenced anyone who thought he was
losing touch with the Spaniard and Djokovic.
For Murray it was pure devastation, another
opportunity missed and the thought that he might end up like his coach Ivan
Lendl, always chasing a Wimbledon title in vain. As it is, they already share
the experience of having lost their first four major finals.
The eternal lesson here, if you are trying to pull
off something as extraordinary as he is trying to do, is that these errors just
cannot be afforded against all-time greats.
More is the shame because, in complete contrast to
his previous three finals, the home player had started dynamically under the
watchful gaze of the great and the good in the Royal Box and beyond, whose
aggregate importance might have reduced the innards of many men to water.
Federer was the more nervous-looking, making
mistakes and being broken early. He composed himself only when restoring parity
in the fourth game
The turning point was pure Lendl and another sign that Murray was not intimidated. At 15-15 in the ninth game he almost beheaded his opponent by ‘drilling’ him at the net to win the point.
You just do not do these things to the Swiss and
Federer’s sense of order was so shaken he won only one more point in the set.
In a monster sixth game of the third set, which lasted 19 minutes, he created six break points before slotting away a game-winning forehand. It was then that the technical linchpin of Murray’s progress - his serve - became less than steadfast, especially in the number of first deliveries he was getting in.
Having missed a tough backhand to go 2-0 up in the
fourth, Federer delivered the killer blow with a glorious cross court backhand
that saw him break for 4-2.
Not even the urgings of the Prime Minister, his
deputy, or the Mayor of London could help the home man stop the victory march
then.
All of those three play tennis, but it is a
different sport to that practised by yesterday’s protaganists. Federer has
shown himself to be on a different planet and it is one which, to Murray’s
heart-bursting frustration, he cannot yet reach.
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