Murray wimps past Verdasco to make the last four

Andy Murray could not have tried harder to lose his quarter-final meeting with Fernando Verdasco and his Spanish opponent could not have tried harder to aid him to victory.

Dropping a passively played first set on a double fault, Murray then dropped the second. While the 31 year old Spaniard played his part, too, whacking that forehand with all his might and serving better than he ever has in his career, the Scot put up little to no opposition against a man as wary of the net as himself and who is well past his prime, a condition we are led to believe the Scotsman is well and truly in.

Two sets down, Murray moved up a gear, playing more aggressively when he had to, as he is prone to do, rather than at the outset of a match and thus relieving us the pain of sitting through such a passive game. Murray came back from a break down and took the third set and then the fourth, the crowd cheering on not just his rare winners but his opponent’s errors and double faults, too, turning a gentleman’s game into a playground of thugs.

In the fifth set, matters picked up. Verdasco found his form again and unleashed his forehand while Murray was at his consistent, workmanlike best, coming forward now and then for show, and the two were engaged in a good old fashioned dogfight. Amid the cacophany, one wonders how either men could think, but they were able to keep it together to get to a 5-5 final set showdown. With the ‘support’ of the crowd and the history of an opponent liable to lose matches he should win, Murray emerged the winner, the final point an example of how Murray likes to ply his trade, and when the slower courts make that plying most profitable who can blame him. Murray ran side to side and retrieved his opponent’s blows, sending them back pace-less and tepid into the middle of the court until his opponent’s warm form boiled over and an error gifted Murray the match.

Murray, a man for whom the modern conditions of the game seem made for, has made many a business end of a Major playing such insipid tennis. At some point, with the exception of last year’s US Open, he comes up across a player who won’t stand for it. He should beware of Jerzy Janowicz waiting in the next round. This is a man fresh and hungry who will feast on a Murray who thinks crumbs will be thrown beyond the baseline. Janowicz will love nothing more than to roast and devour a Mandy Burger come Friday. And tennis purists will be there to feed off the fatty scraps.