TENNIS:BUDD SCHULBERG, who wrote perceptively about boxing and life, reckoned all that separated tennis from fighting as a one-on-one sporting contest was the "sense of physical danger" when two men trade blows of evil intent.
It is a sentiment with which Andy Murray might identify. The lean, muscled Scot, who counts Amir Khan among his sporting friends, went into the opening round of the Australian Open mentally prepared for a fight – but, whatever he said later, he did not really get one against the South African qualifier Kevin Anderson, blowing him away in straight sets.
Murray knows the rest of his Melbourne fortnight will not be such a pushover. It should not be health-threatening, but it will stretch the sinews of his spirit. The Scot’s enthusiasm for boxing is dwarfed only by a sensible attachment to reality and his innate gifts with a racket, but he feeds off the instinct for self-preservation that sustains all fighters.
It might have been this fight-fear that led him to oversell Anderson as a contender before knocking him over with disdain. And it could yet serve him well against the winner of the postponed match between Italy’s Simone Bolelli and the Frenchman Marc Gicquel – then, down the road, Rafael Nadal in the quarter-finals. Nadal had troubles of his own, though ultimately, he stayed cool to beat the stubborn Polish-born Australian Peter Luczak, 7-6, 6-1, 6-4.
Murray arrived in Melbourne with every expectation of doing better than in four previous visits, but nevertheless convinced himself Anderson, a 23-year-old South African with a resume as thin as his long legs, would be “a tough test”. Here was a 6ft 7in opponent who, if not quite Manny Pacquiao, was a stretched version of Ricky Hatton, he reckoned.
“It was tough,” he repeated afterwards, in contradiction of the evidence of a one-sided contest that lasted 97 minutes. Murray hardly shipped a punch worth the name and landed plenty of his own on Anderson, rated number 148 in the world. At times, Murray was awesome, to borrow an overused word from the Australian lexicon.
Murray can look churlish in adversity and arrogant when on top. Here he strutted through the first two sets. He responded sharply, too, to Anderson’s blip of a fightback in the third to close the match out in style. He’d served soundly and brought the crowd to life with brief passages of flat power shots to both wings.
He commanded the net, too, when the match was safe. If, as seems likely, this Open is to raise the lingering debate of daring v caution (as several players have said it will in the past week), Murray provided proof that he can mix it up. It might be the formula that decides the winner.
He is still as hard on himself as he can be on his opponents, and hinted he could take more chances. Asked if he were happy coming in behind his serve, he said, “It worked well. I got a bit unlucky as the volley I missed was after his pass came off the tape. It is nice that it is the play I decided to go with on a break point. Last year, I may have played a little more conservatively.”
Murray has cut his support staff and looks happier for it. “I have to make sure everyone who is here has a job to do,” he said. “It is not like in the past I felt there were way too many people. It is just one or two people. It is just a little calmer and maybe we are not spending as much time together. Maybe it will work, maybe it won’t.”
Irish number one Louk Sorensen was due to play his first main draw Grand Slam match against Yen-Hsun Lu of Taiwan yesterday morning but the tie was postponed due to heavy rainfall in Melbourne. It has now been rescheduled for today – the first match on Court 14.
