FLUSHING MEADOWS, N.Y. — Far from the emerald-green lawns of the All England Club, and the shouldering-a-nation pressures that come with being the British No. 1, Andy Murray has historically played his best tennis on this side of Th
e Pond. He won his first Challenger title in the little seaside enclave of Aptos, Calif., back in ’05, and his first and second ATP-level events just up the 101 in San Jose in ’06 and ’07. He’s long made it clear that he’s most comfortable when playing on U.S. soil.
The ’08 U.S. Open runner-up to Roger Federer, who came into the final Slam of the year a favorite in the eyes of many a prognosticator, looked anything but comfortable in a shocking 7-5, 6-2, 6-2 fourth-round loss to on-the-rise Croat Marin Cilic.
If there’s ever been a knock on the world No. 2, it’s the perception that he’s a soft finisher. No doubt about it: on the run, Murray is one of the cleanest ballstrikers out there, an über counterpuncher who can produce winners from anywhere on the court. But there are times when the Scotsman plays it a tad too safe and hesitates to cut off points early, to jump on the short ball and go for the outright winner. That lack of aggressiveness was more than apparent on Tuesday at Ashe Stadium, where he looked out of sorts all afternoon.
Murray was cruising along early in the match, and even held a pair of set points with Cilic serving at 5-4 in the first set. But Cilic fought off both and managed to hold.
“When I held my serve for 5-all, I think I relaxed a little more,” said Cilic, who posted 35 winners to Murray’s 13. “I had [a] little more confidence after that.”
Then, facing a break point at 5-5, Murray swatted a forehand that clipped the net cord and sailed beyond the baseline, giving his 20-year-old opponent the break. During the subsequent changeover, Murray could be seen grabbing his left wrist (on his non-serving arm) and grimacing in pain. When he took the court again, he wore a look of disgust and, facing set point, sliced a backhand into the net to give Cilic the stanza. He never regained his form. The No. 17-ranked Cilic opened the second set with another break — one of five on the day — and never trailed thereafter.
But the 22-year-old Murray blamed his flat play, not his tweaked wrist, for the upset.
“I had a problem with it for a week or so,” said Murray, whose usually solid return game seemed to abandon him (he failed to convert even one of his even break-point opportunities). “But regardless, I just struggled today. I played poorly. I’m obviously very disappointed…Today, it didn’t feel like I played well. I had my chance in the first set, and then struggled after that…I guess the momentum went with him, and I didn’t manage to get it back.”
What’s remarkable is that Murray had been the ATP Tour’s most consistent hard-court performer of the year, having gone 37-3 on cement coming into the match. He held a 3-0 career advantage over the Croatian. Cilic meanwhile, had never beaten a top-three player.
“It’s [the] biggest result for me so far,” said the first-time Slam quarterfinalist, who is coached by Bob Brett, the onetime coach of Cilic’s fellow countryman Goran Ivanisevic.
Although he was raised on the deep-red clay along the Adriatic, the altitudinous Cilic, like Murray, favors the hard courts, a surface that has also been good to his quarterfinal opponent Juan Martin Del Potro, who was quick to dust ’03 U.S. Open finalist J.C. Ferrero of Spain 6-3, 6-3, 6-3 in reaching his third Slam quarterfinal of the year. Since he burst onto the scene in the summer of ’08, reeling off four straight summertime wins, including hard-court titles in L.A. and Washington, the Argentine has become a force to be reckoned with. Now ranked No. 6, he took down Rafael Nadal earlier this year in Miami and Andy Roddick in the D.C. final. But Cilic has a few hard-court titles of his own, including two this year in Chennai and Zagreb.
The Del Potro vs. Cilic pairing is an intriguing study in sameness. For starters, they were born within five days of each other. Both are 6-foot-6, and tip the scales at about 180 pounds. And they are perhaps the two best movers of the new-era big men (Del Potro, Cilic, Gulbis, Querrey, etc.). The foes have only met once before, in the fourth round of the ’09 Aussie Open, where Del Potro registered a 5-7, 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 win. But this is different. This is a quarterfinal. There’s a whole lot more at stake.
“If he beat Murray, he’s confident,” said Del Potro. “It will be very tough for me.”
