Andy Murray v John Isner – live! | Rob Smyth

• Hit F5 for the latest or select the auto-refresh button below • And email your thoughts to rob.smyth@guardian.co.uk 5.32pm “I hate all this nonsense about Murray not having the winning mentality (invariably said by journalists or pub pundits who – like me – have won nothing of significance in their lives),” says Jonathan Wood. “Absolutely he has, and he’s comfortably the fourth best player in the world – which is more than any British footballer or rubgy player can claim to be. And Darren Holliday might be interested to know that on US TV last night, that former choker John McEnroe (who is also a huge Murray fan, of course) said he believes, with the current top four, this is the golden age for men’s tennis.” 5.30pm Here come the players. It’s a gorgeous day in New York, although the court is barely half full at the moment. 5.13pm No sign of the players. Here’s Darren Holliday. “You wrote: ‘ As my colleague Jacob Steinberg has noted, Murray has the misfortune to be playing in an age when excellence is not enough. You have to be perfect ,’” says Darren. “But as a tennis fan I can tell you that this era of Federer/Nadal/Djokovic is no more special than any other era. Back in Henman’s time the excuse was that he was unfortunate to be playing at the same time as Sampras/Agassi. Go back a bit earlier and people will tell you the Becker/Edberg/Lendl was the greatest of eras. Go back a few more years we had the Borg/McEnroe/Connors era. Murray has no excuse other than that he is not good enough to win a Slam and would not have been good enough in earlier times either. As you know being a Man Utd fan, being champion isn’t just about technical ability, it’s a state of mind. This Murray lacks most of all and it has nothing to do with this era of tennis being particularly special.” Look, as will soon become apparent, I have no idea what I’m talking about. But wasn’t the spread of grand slams much greater in those previous eras? Isn’t Del Potro the only other man to win one in the last five or six years? I do share the view that Murray will never win a slam, although I don’t entirely agree with your reasoning. Play will start just after 5pm . When I say ‘play’, I mean ‘the match’. I’m not from round these tennis parts, and I’m not really used to the terminology, so please forgive me if I confuse a backhand with a hook shot and a forehand with a DDT. Preamble Who’d be Andy Murray, eh? Anyone with a brain, obviously. What’s not to love? He has an admirable temper on him and doesn’t suffer Englishmen gladly. He’s also talented, smart, humble, funny and self-deprecating – genuinely so, rather than those execrable phonies all over Twitter and society who have swallowed their Peep Show boxset. But Murray is in a pretty unenviable position when it comes to grand slams. If he loses to one of the top three, he’s failed; if he loses to someone outside the top three, he’s really failed. I suppose he could win the darn thing , but you try beating two of Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic in the space of 72 hours. Or even taking a set off one of them. As my colleague Jacob Steinberg has noted, Murray has the misfortune to be playing in an age when excellence is not enough. You have to be perfect. If Murray beats the dangerous John Isner today, he will meet Rafael Nadal or Andy Roddick in the last four. He will also have reached the semi-finals of the four grand slams for the first time in a calendar year, a feat that has only ever been achieved by six men. Yet nobody will care about that if the semis are as far as he goes. US Open 2011 US Open tennis Tennis Andy Murray Rob Smyth guardian.co.uk

Posted by on September 9, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.