Monday 9th July

Well, it didn’t go quite to plan, although against Roger Federer, and back to his best again, what plan could have worked.  All you can say is that Andy Murray gave his all, but his all wasn’t quite good enough.  And even at the end you felt that Roger could just as easily have stepped up another gear if required. So, the excitement is over, and another year’s Wimbledon is at an end, though there will not be one quite like it for a while one suspects.  The game of tennis is a superb contest of skills and temperament, and the part of the game that is maybe the hardest is the psychological one.  This year Andy was much cooler, the work of Ivan Lendl no doubt, but there were still signs of his frustration, the occasional banging of the racquet, the reckless line challenges and the hanging head.  It is this part of Andy’s game that still needs work.  And how important ones serve is, personally I could never serve for toffee; I have no idea where the ball is going when I hit it, and if it gets over the net at all I am as surprised as my opponent.  Federer’s serve was rock solid, and seldom wavered, whereas Murray’s went slowly downhill.

Let us hope that this is a stepping stone in his career, not the pinnacle.  And at least he can comfort himself that he did get to the final, which no other British man has done for over seventy years.  Well done Andy.  And even better done Roger