The Man vs the Boy

Andy Murray had been playing some of the best tennis of his life. He had a 6-4 lifetime record against Roger. He varied his game enough to blast Nadal away 2 rounds prior. Yet Federer was able to pull Murray into a tennis vacuum. Precedent and form seemed to have no effect during this year's Australian Open final. This was a grand slam final against the best player ever to live. The biggest stage ever. Normal rules don't apply.

Andy Murray began the match with a glimmer of hope. He did an amazing job of making Federer hit backhand after backhand. No matter where Andy was on court he was able to flick the ball to Federer's left nearly every time. As a result the rallies were long and grueling, and much of the first set was decided inevitably by unforced errors. But the glaring difference over the course match was Murray's inability to sense a short ball, take advantage of it, and transition properly. Nobody does this better than Roger Federer.

Now there is a difference between being passive and not hitting the ball aggressively enough. Andy Murray hit a good number of hard shots and winners. Only problem was, he was waiting for the ball to come to him almost every time. If one of Roger's shots landed short, Andy would often wait for the ball to bounce to him, hitting it while it was dropping instead of moving up a step or two and hitting the ball at the peak of the bounce. And when he did step in to take a ball early he would often roll it back cross court. This pattern of play gave Roger all the time in the world and he took it, giving a dazzling display of skill.

As well rounded a player as Murray is, and as well as he defends, he has no big weapon in his game. No one shot that can take over a point or rip control from his opponent. Many of the top players of this generation fall into a similar categories. The absolute cream of the crop - those who have been winning slams - have weapons. Weapons that are bigger than anything the game has seen before.

Sorry Andy, your game still needs to grow. You have to win a grand slam final - you can't just wait for your opponent to lose.