The seeds of Andy Murray’s triumph at Wimbledon on Sunday were perhaps sown last year at the London Olympics and nurtured at the US Open later in August. Murray’s win, in a way, makes one wonder if this is some sort of atonement?
At the first sight, it looks exactly like that of Ivan Lendl who could never win the coveted title on grass, despite making it to five semi-finals and two finals. In 1982, Lendl, a Czech, walked away from Wimbledon making a classic comment: “Grass is for cows.”
Lendl, now a US citizen, was a wonderful all-round player who won the Australian, French and US Open. Only the Wimbledon title eluded him.
In the later part of his career, he regretted the remark and said he was willing to trade all his titles for one Wimbledon triumph. It was never to be.
But Sunday’s win should make Lendl at least half happy because it is under him that Murray has begun to realise his potential.
The Scott was always seen as a player with tremendous promise, but lacking the killer punch. All that changed ever since Lendl began to train him.
The Lendl-Murray combo’s deeds began with the Olympic finals, in which Murray put it across Roger Federer to win the coveted gold at London. He followed it up with a victory in the US Open, defeating Novak Djokovic.
The Serbian avenged the US Open defeat with a 6-7, 7-6, 6-3,6-2 win over the Scott.
The French Open can never be in Murray’s scheme of things since Rafael Nadal has made Roland Garros his kingdom. And the Wimbledon finals saw the Murray-Djokovic rivalry resume. Will that continue in the US Open? Only time will tell. For now, the Brits will savour their countryman getting the much-wanted title after 77 years. Maybe, it was one way through which Lendl is telling tennis lovers how much he misses the title in his showcase.