Juicy odds on the local - think it might be a little too much value to pass up as Murray certainly sounds confident and on top of his game
Here are a couple of recent articles from ESPN
this one before his round of 16 match:
WIMBLEDON, England -- Several thousand tennis spectators squeezed onto Henman Hill to watch their native son, Andy Murray, on the big electronic screen.
In recent years it's been a high-anxiety, tension convention when Tim Henman, the flagship of the British Empire, played on Centre Court at Wimbledon. But on Saturday it felt different.
Some people, warmed by the sun (and perhaps a few Pimm's), slept soundly. One woman scratched an entry diligently in her diary and others conversed quietly. Oddly, many of them were disconnected from the tennis playing out below.
It had a mellow, festival vibe.
Henman reached four semifinals here in his career, but he never won the championship at the All England Club. It has been 72 years since a British man, Fred Perry, lifted the title and even then you could often feel the frustration on Henman Hill during his inevitable defeats.
With Henman now retired and in the BBC commentary box, it's a new day in British tennis. Maybe these fans, afraid of another perpetual failure, are reluctant to invest too much passion just yet. Strangely enough, this seems to be Murray's approach, too.
And, so far, it's working.
The No. 12 seed, squashed Tommy Haas 6-4, 6-7 (4), 6-3, 6-2 in a match that some thought might go the other way. With the win Murray's into the fourth round, matching his best effort in three previous tries.
While Haas was melting down in a blue haze of German curse words, the once-mercurial Murray enjoyed a relatively calm voyage -- something new for the 21-year-old from Dunblane, Scotland.
"I've managed to deal with the tight situations," Murray said. "I didn't play well in the tiebreak, but I managed to get back in front after that. That might not have happened last year.
"I struggled to deal with all the expectations and pressure on me. I've got a lot of people that support me. I'm very comfortable out there on the court."
Henman too, is impressed by Murray.
"His whole attitude, his body language has been first class," Henman said.
Murray and Haas, who's 30, have all the shots. In fact, when they are healthy they are two of the pure, ball-strikers among ATP players. Their only two previous meetings, the past two years at Indian Wells (they split), produced some excellent tennis.
The shot of this match -- a significant one at that -- came early in the first set. Haas ran Murray off the court, but the Scot tracked the ball down and made a ridiculous stab backhand, with just enough slice to hook it inside the line. He broke Haas' serve for a 2-1 lead and Murray made it stand up for the rest of the set.
After squandering a break in the second set, Murray lost the second-set tiebreaker before winning the last two sets easily.
Clive Brunskill/Getty Images
Haas' career has been marred by myriad injuries that have caused him to play a limited schedule in the past few years.
For Haas, it was another cruel disappointment at Wimbledon. In 2001, he retired from his match with Wayne Black when he was shut down by an upset stomach. In 2007 he withdrew before his match with Roger Federer with a torn stomach muscle. The sequence that underlines Haas' injury-plagued career came here in 2005, when he stepped on a ball while warming up with Janko Tipsarevic. Haas sprained his right ankle, withdrew before the match and missed the next month.
Haas, who was once ranked No. 2 in the world, has had three major shoulder surgeries and missed time with a laundry list of injuries that includes: a broken left ankle, broken right ankle, bulging back disc, rotator cuff, elbow, wrist, pollen allergies, sinus infection and even food poisoning. In the summer of 2002, he missed six weeks after a motorcycle accident involving his parents; his father Peter was in a coma for two weeks.
The only adversity Murray has endured this first week at Wimbledon? He was locked out of his southwest London flat when his girlfriend Kim Sears and a friend took both sets of keys on a jaunt into central London.
Sears, by all accounts, has helped settle Murray down. There is also a new addition to the support team, Maggie -- after the Rod Stewart song, "Maggie May" -- the border terrier.
Murray has tweaked his approach to tennis and made a conscious effort to spend less time on the court. Less, in this case he said, has amounted to more.
"I think a lot of my frustrations in the past came from poor concentration," Murray said. "I think because I spent so much time at the courts, around tennis tournaments, my mind got a little bit tired of being on the court.
"And now, I'm spending less time around the courts. I'm spending less time watching tennis on TV and having more of a life outside tennis, which is what's for me making a difference.
"I'm enjoying myself when I'm on the court now, rather than it being a bit of a drag."
Murray is on the threshold of a new dimension. A win over Richard Gasquet would send him into his first Grand Slam quarterfinal, in the tournament that means the most to him and this fiercely proud island nation.
"For me, there's not a huge difference between a fourth round and a quarterfinal in a Slam," he said, surprising -- maybe disappointing -- some members of the British press. "There's a big jump, from the position I'm in now to getting to the final. It's still sort of three matches away, and I'm going to have to beat some really tough players if I want to go on and do that.
"But, yeah, I'm not really thinking about reaching the quarterfinal. I'm more interested in making the final."
With that kind of forward thinking, Henman Hill might be renamed Murray Mound sooner than you might think.
This one after:
Keeping a watchful eye on the big-name players
By Ravi Ubha
Special to ESPN.com
Updated: June 30, 2008, 8:06 PM ET
Comment
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Editor's note: Each day at Wimbledon, ESPN.com will track one or more of the game's brightest stars, lending an inside look at their daily matches, practices and routines.
Monday, June 30
A British hope toiling deep into the night as the masses cheered from Centre Court and a grassy Wimbledon knoll. Sound familiar?
No, it wasn't Tim Henman, but instead his successor, Andy Murray.
The round of 16 was anointed Murray's on Monday after the Scot rallied from a two-set hole for the second time in his career -- both on home soil -- to knock off a woebegone Richard Gasquet, the talented Frenchman who could do little wrong for the first two hours.
When Murray ended the 5-7, 3-6, 7-6 (3), 6-2, 6-4 contest in four hours, he rolled up his sleeve and flexed his right bicep, a pop at detractors who've often admonished his fitness levels. The crowd roared, those on Henman Hill included, even if they could barely see him. The tussle concluded at 9:31 p.m. local time, Murray moving a step closer to becoming the first Brit to win Wimbledon since Fred Perry in 1936.
"Coming back from two sets to love, playing obviously very well at the end, and the support that I got, made that probably the best [match] that I played in,'' said Murray, chomping down on some sushi during his postmatch news conference. "It's the best support I've ever had in a match in my life. You don't really prepare yourself for it.''
Murray began his comeback by breaking Gasquet when he served for the match at 5-4 in the third. Call it a choke. By Murray's own admission, the match turned entirely when he captured a pulsating third-set tiebreak.
Murray finished the set off with an outlandish backhand slice while almost touching the first row of the stands, chasing down a backhand volley delivered at an acute angle. He let out an almighty howl and Gasquet, not known for being especially mentally tough, was pretty much done.
"That was obviously huge,'' said Murray, who delivered 72 winners, six more than Gasquet. "To hit the shot, that got the crowd going and it shifted the momentum. His head went down for a couple of games after that.''
Gasquet, seemingly reinvigorated under new coach Guillaume Peyre, blew a two-set lead for the first time. Recall that last July he rallied from a two-set deficit at the All England Club to oust Andy Roddick in the quarters.
Gasquet criticized Wimbledon officials for not halting proceedings because of bad light in the fifth, although he stopped short of saying it was the deciding factor.
"If I was up two sets and 5-4 anywhere else but Wimbledon I would have won the match,'' Gasquet said. "When I lost the third my confidence was down and the crowd was for him.''
Indeed, the fourth lasted 25 minutes. The lone break of the fifth came in the opening game, Murray finally capitalizing on his fifth chance.
Gasquet earned his solitary opportunity in the next game and missed, then mustered only three points in the last four Murray service games.
Speaking of biceps, Murray's next opponent is second-seeded Rafael Nadal.
Nadal leads their head-to-heads 3-0, including a five-set thriller at the Australian Open in 2007.
"I think both of our games have changed a bit since then,'' Murray said. "He's definitely playing better on grass than he was in previous years. I like to think I'm playing better.''
And no one needs to tell him which side the crowd will be on.
Here are a couple of recent articles from ESPN
this one before his round of 16 match:
WIMBLEDON, England -- Several thousand tennis spectators squeezed onto Henman Hill to watch their native son, Andy Murray, on the big electronic screen.
In recent years it's been a high-anxiety, tension convention when Tim Henman, the flagship of the British Empire, played on Centre Court at Wimbledon. But on Saturday it felt different.
Some people, warmed by the sun (and perhaps a few Pimm's), slept soundly. One woman scratched an entry diligently in her diary and others conversed quietly. Oddly, many of them were disconnected from the tennis playing out below.
It had a mellow, festival vibe.
Henman reached four semifinals here in his career, but he never won the championship at the All England Club. It has been 72 years since a British man, Fred Perry, lifted the title and even then you could often feel the frustration on Henman Hill during his inevitable defeats.
With Henman now retired and in the BBC commentary box, it's a new day in British tennis. Maybe these fans, afraid of another perpetual failure, are reluctant to invest too much passion just yet. Strangely enough, this seems to be Murray's approach, too.
And, so far, it's working.
The No. 12 seed, squashed Tommy Haas 6-4, 6-7 (4), 6-3, 6-2 in a match that some thought might go the other way. With the win Murray's into the fourth round, matching his best effort in three previous tries.
While Haas was melting down in a blue haze of German curse words, the once-mercurial Murray enjoyed a relatively calm voyage -- something new for the 21-year-old from Dunblane, Scotland.
"I've managed to deal with the tight situations," Murray said. "I didn't play well in the tiebreak, but I managed to get back in front after that. That might not have happened last year.
"I struggled to deal with all the expectations and pressure on me. I've got a lot of people that support me. I'm very comfortable out there on the court."
Henman too, is impressed by Murray.
"His whole attitude, his body language has been first class," Henman said.
Murray and Haas, who's 30, have all the shots. In fact, when they are healthy they are two of the pure, ball-strikers among ATP players. Their only two previous meetings, the past two years at Indian Wells (they split), produced some excellent tennis.
The shot of this match -- a significant one at that -- came early in the first set. Haas ran Murray off the court, but the Scot tracked the ball down and made a ridiculous stab backhand, with just enough slice to hook it inside the line. He broke Haas' serve for a 2-1 lead and Murray made it stand up for the rest of the set.
After squandering a break in the second set, Murray lost the second-set tiebreaker before winning the last two sets easily.
Clive Brunskill/Getty Images
Haas' career has been marred by myriad injuries that have caused him to play a limited schedule in the past few years.
For Haas, it was another cruel disappointment at Wimbledon. In 2001, he retired from his match with Wayne Black when he was shut down by an upset stomach. In 2007 he withdrew before his match with Roger Federer with a torn stomach muscle. The sequence that underlines Haas' injury-plagued career came here in 2005, when he stepped on a ball while warming up with Janko Tipsarevic. Haas sprained his right ankle, withdrew before the match and missed the next month.
Haas, who was once ranked No. 2 in the world, has had three major shoulder surgeries and missed time with a laundry list of injuries that includes: a broken left ankle, broken right ankle, bulging back disc, rotator cuff, elbow, wrist, pollen allergies, sinus infection and even food poisoning. In the summer of 2002, he missed six weeks after a motorcycle accident involving his parents; his father Peter was in a coma for two weeks.
The only adversity Murray has endured this first week at Wimbledon? He was locked out of his southwest London flat when his girlfriend Kim Sears and a friend took both sets of keys on a jaunt into central London.
Sears, by all accounts, has helped settle Murray down. There is also a new addition to the support team, Maggie -- after the Rod Stewart song, "Maggie May" -- the border terrier.
Murray has tweaked his approach to tennis and made a conscious effort to spend less time on the court. Less, in this case he said, has amounted to more.
"I think a lot of my frustrations in the past came from poor concentration," Murray said. "I think because I spent so much time at the courts, around tennis tournaments, my mind got a little bit tired of being on the court.
"And now, I'm spending less time around the courts. I'm spending less time watching tennis on TV and having more of a life outside tennis, which is what's for me making a difference.
"I'm enjoying myself when I'm on the court now, rather than it being a bit of a drag."
Murray is on the threshold of a new dimension. A win over Richard Gasquet would send him into his first Grand Slam quarterfinal, in the tournament that means the most to him and this fiercely proud island nation.
"For me, there's not a huge difference between a fourth round and a quarterfinal in a Slam," he said, surprising -- maybe disappointing -- some members of the British press. "There's a big jump, from the position I'm in now to getting to the final. It's still sort of three matches away, and I'm going to have to beat some really tough players if I want to go on and do that.
"But, yeah, I'm not really thinking about reaching the quarterfinal. I'm more interested in making the final."
With that kind of forward thinking, Henman Hill might be renamed Murray Mound sooner than you might think.
This one after:
Keeping a watchful eye on the big-name players
By Ravi Ubha
Special to ESPN.com
Updated: June 30, 2008, 8:06 PM ET
Comment
Editor's note: Each day at Wimbledon, ESPN.com will track one or more of the game's brightest stars, lending an inside look at their daily matches, practices and routines.
Monday, June 30
A British hope toiling deep into the night as the masses cheered from Centre Court and a grassy Wimbledon knoll. Sound familiar?
No, it wasn't Tim Henman, but instead his successor, Andy Murray.
The round of 16 was anointed Murray's on Monday after the Scot rallied from a two-set hole for the second time in his career -- both on home soil -- to knock off a woebegone Richard Gasquet, the talented Frenchman who could do little wrong for the first two hours.
When Murray ended the 5-7, 3-6, 7-6 (3), 6-2, 6-4 contest in four hours, he rolled up his sleeve and flexed his right bicep, a pop at detractors who've often admonished his fitness levels. The crowd roared, those on Henman Hill included, even if they could barely see him. The tussle concluded at 9:31 p.m. local time, Murray moving a step closer to becoming the first Brit to win Wimbledon since Fred Perry in 1936.
"Coming back from two sets to love, playing obviously very well at the end, and the support that I got, made that probably the best [match] that I played in,'' said Murray, chomping down on some sushi during his postmatch news conference. "It's the best support I've ever had in a match in my life. You don't really prepare yourself for it.''
Murray began his comeback by breaking Gasquet when he served for the match at 5-4 in the third. Call it a choke. By Murray's own admission, the match turned entirely when he captured a pulsating third-set tiebreak.
Murray finished the set off with an outlandish backhand slice while almost touching the first row of the stands, chasing down a backhand volley delivered at an acute angle. He let out an almighty howl and Gasquet, not known for being especially mentally tough, was pretty much done.
"That was obviously huge,'' said Murray, who delivered 72 winners, six more than Gasquet. "To hit the shot, that got the crowd going and it shifted the momentum. His head went down for a couple of games after that.''
Gasquet, seemingly reinvigorated under new coach Guillaume Peyre, blew a two-set lead for the first time. Recall that last July he rallied from a two-set deficit at the All England Club to oust Andy Roddick in the quarters.
Gasquet criticized Wimbledon officials for not halting proceedings because of bad light in the fifth, although he stopped short of saying it was the deciding factor.
"If I was up two sets and 5-4 anywhere else but Wimbledon I would have won the match,'' Gasquet said. "When I lost the third my confidence was down and the crowd was for him.''
Indeed, the fourth lasted 25 minutes. The lone break of the fifth came in the opening game, Murray finally capitalizing on his fifth chance.
Gasquet earned his solitary opportunity in the next game and missed, then mustered only three points in the last four Murray service games.
Speaking of biceps, Murray's next opponent is second-seeded Rafael Nadal.
Nadal leads their head-to-heads 3-0, including a five-set thriller at the Australian Open in 2007.
"I think both of our games have changed a bit since then,'' Murray said. "He's definitely playing better on grass than he was in previous years. I like to think I'm playing better.''
And no one needs to tell him which side the crowd will be on.
