Andy Murray
Roger Federer has been overpowered by Andy Murray in the Shangai Masters finale. Martina Navratilova, the best ever women’s tennis player and the 18 grand slam winner has said her points for Federer’s trounce.
”As long as Nadal stays fit, Federer will never be the World No 1 again. Roger’s pushing 30 while Nadal has a good five years on him.” Nadal did not even progress it past the third round at Shanghai.
Federer and Nadal have challenged on all three facades grass, hard and clay in their seven meets in grand slam finals. And they are not done yet. Had Federer converted his two match points against Novak Djokovic in the semi finals of the recently concluded US Open it would have been another final at the majors between these two greats.
On our side we surely have our panorama that the Swiss star to quirk his boots before Rafael, but the longer the predictable is delayed the better it is for the game which has been redefined by these world masters. When there is a conclusion in Federer-Rafael challenge it will indubitably leave an irretrievable emptiness not just in tennis but the complete sporting sorority.
Andy with no difficulty clutched the game from Federer with a straight sets win 6-3, 6-2. Murray, world 4th champion is one of the few players to have a winning record against Federer but claimed he had to fight for each of the eight wins.
He said: “I enjoy playing him. I don’t find it easy at all. It’s incredibly difficult every time.
But I love the challenge of playing against him. I don’t fear playing him. Every time I go on, I know I need to play great tennis to win against him.
“I don’t know if my game matches up well against his or not. But I’ve played some of my best tennis against Roger.”
Murray felt his improved second serve was key to his emphatic victory.
“Against Roger you can’t let him get out in front,” said Murray.
“You have to go after it early. I returned his serve well and got a lot of free points on my first serve and my second serve has improved so much since the start of the year that he wasn’t really able to take many chances on it.”
Roger Federer expressed during an interview in Hong Kong, at the forefront of the Masters 1000 event in Shanghai, China that
“With a few minor adjustments I think I can really beat the best without a problem.”
But right now those words seemed to have lost their meaning. Or just Roger is appallingly timid and needs to decree himself the best to boost his confidence or he is doing it to keep his marketing brand of ‘the best’.
Tags: Andy Murray, Grand Slam, Martina Navratilova, Roger Federer, Shangai Masters, Tennis
