Coming off the back of his 4th title at the AEGON Championships at the Queens Club, can Andy Murray be classed as a favourite at Wimbledon?
Boris Becker, coach of Novak Djokovic, certainly thinks so. In this video Becker admits that Murray is certainly one of the favourites for the title this year. Becker is obviously in Djokovic’s corner and believes his charge will win the title, however he is not discounting Murray.
With his current form Murray is having a great season, coming out of his best clay court swing since he started on the tour, which earned him two trophies along the way (including a Masters on clay) and has begun his grass court swing unbeaten. Dropping only one set along the way to his record-equalling 4th win at the Queen’s Club, Murray is playing some aggressive and impressive grass court tennis. On what is arguably his best and favourite surface, Murray is on great form, having played himself in at the Queen’s tournament (which he interestingly seems to like to win when the year is an odd number). His running cross court forehands and backhands have been amazing, his drop shots followed by lobs sublime, and the impossible angles and the net approaches have made Murray into a fantastic all around player on the grass.
Stan Wawrinka, the French Open champion, also believes that Murray is a favourite for Wimbledon. He puts him third behind Djokovic and Federer, which will tally with the seedings at the tournament. There is more going for him than just his ranking, however. For example, Murray has never lost a set to Djokovic on grass even though he is trailing in the overall head to head. Going back to Roland Garros and the semifinal against Djokovic, Murray showed how much he has improved from previous years. After dropping the first two sets to Djokovic many were already writing this off as another straight sets loss against World #1. Murray however, was not going away. Playing the best clay tennis that this author has seen from Murray, he attacked and took the third set. Murray then broke the Djokovic serve early in set four before getting broken back. With the match poised at 3-3 in the fourth set play was suspended for the day as a storm gathered. Returning to finish the match the next day, many pundits had already written Murray off, saying that Djokovic would win the 3 games needed and it would all be over in minuets. But we learned to never write off Murray. Continuing the momentum from the day before, Murray was pulling Djokovic over the court and like with set three, he took set four. This is the first time since Djokovic had become #1 that anyone had pulled him back from being two sets down. With exceptional play the match had become a one set shoot out which #1 Djokovic eventually won. Although he lost the match, Murray took many positives from it, and showed he is getting closer to defeating Djokovic. Moving forward to Wimbledon and with the fact that Murray moves better on the grass than the clay and is certainly enjoying playing tennis again With a confident and settled team around him Murray looked unstoppable at Queens.
It will not be easy to win the title again, however Andy Murray can be classed as a favourite at Wimbledon. Many of the pundits have him as one of the title favourites and the bookmakers even cut his odds after he stormed to the title at Queens on Sunday.
Enjoy what you see? Check out our full Wimbledon coverage here.
Main Photo:
