Awesome Murray holds all the aces against Federer

Matthew Norman
8 Sep 2008

Well, well, well, who would have believed it? The bare fact of it should astonish nobody, because for a year it's been obvious that Andy Murray has the rich talent, physical stamina, mental strength and rapacious desire to turn the ruling triumvirate into a quartet.

But the manner of it? Who'd have thought that Murray would inaugurate the new Big Four by beating Rafael Nadal at his own greatest strength? For ultimately it was his ability to outrally the Spaniard from the baseline - something long viewed as technically impossible - that decided an epic semi-final in New York.

There were other vital factors. His serving was miraculous, while that gorgeous two-handed backhand was crisper and more destructive than ever. As for his calm in the moments of crisis that inevitably arose to test his core, here he defied credibility again.

Playing Nadal is like facing the Terminator. Every time you think you've finished him off, those globulous metallic atoms reform and he comes at you more ferociously than ever.

More even than his wickedly topspun forehand, this sense of indestructibility and the fatigue it induces explains Roger Federer's poor record against him.

Any other player in the world would have crumpled against Nadal yesterday, after fretting overnight about having the match so nearly won the previous evening when the rain set in to remind us of Tim Henman's heartbreaker against Goran Ivanisevic in the 2001 Wimbledon semi-final.

God have mercy, whispered that familiar voice of British defeatism, a reprieved Nadal is bound to come out tomorrow against a man he has beaten five times out of five and grind him down.

Ominously, when they resumed last night, Nadal had shrugged off Saturday's subdued mediocrity and was back to his best. Murray, so brilliant in the first two sets, simply raised his game, but even then it might not have been enough.

Trailing by a break in the fourth set, Murray improved again when improvement seemed impossible.

Admittedly Nadal looked a touch weary in New York. The fitness edge mentioned here on Friday was also another major influence, while the surface is one he doesn't much like where Murray adores it.

But excuses be damned. Murray overcame, and at times overwhelmed, the game's pre-eminent force with as nerveless, flamboyant and murderous a display of controlled aggression as you are likely to witness. It was excruciating to watch, as such things always are, and a sublime joy to behold.

Whether tonight will be more joyous still is another matter. All logic tells me that Murray will beat Federer, and beat him well, not only because at this precise moment Murray is much the superior player, but also because he has two ways to win.

If he can out-hit Nadal from the back, he can sure as hell do the same to the Fed. But he can also, if he chooses, nurdle him to death, as he has before, by chipping, slicing and changing the pace and spin, and generally frustrating the Swiss.

There is always a chance that the mental energy expended in subduing Nadal (physically, there are no doubts at all) will take a lethal toll.

Yet my only real fear about that semi was that Murray would struggle when he saw the winning post. He did no such thing.

The closer he approached it, the stronger he became. That is the very essence of a champion, and so I am confident that in the early hours of tomorrow we will have our first Grand Slam tennis champion of the open era.

Khan is a flop at the box office

If turning Amir Khan into a pay-per-view fighter at so fledgling a stage of his career was an act of hubristic lunacy, Nemesis didn't hang around long before delivering her punishment. Fifty-four seconds, to be exact.

For those who paid £14.95 to see Khan knocked out inside a minute by Colombia's Breidis Prescott, my commiserations. It was depressing enough for those of us who watched it for nothing on YouTube because Khan, unlike Naseem Hamed, isn't someone you watch purely in the hope that his lights will be put out.

The speed and devastation of this knockout says enough about his shortcomings, despite the hiring a new coach to improve his defence, but all is not lost. He is still very young, extremely talented, and highly likely to become a world champion one day.

After this humiliation, however, he won't be reappearing on Sky Box Office any time soon.

New TV deal is another reason not to bother with Fabio's men

There are two ways to view the sale to Setanta of the rights to England away games in such a nonsensical manner that non-subscribers are denied any highlights on terrestrial TV.

On the one hand, allowing this to happen is a typically foolish move by the Football Association, which either cannot see the damage this does to already strained relations between fans and the national team, or simply doesn't care. On the other hand, any disincentive to watch England perform as they did against Andorra cannot be a bad thing.

So much for looking on the bright side. By colluding in this blatant attempt to blackmail us into paying even more to watch football in such frightening economic times, the FA is guilty of its most cretinous decision since the hiring of Steve McClaren.

In two days, Fabio Capello faces his first serious test in Zagreb.

Losing to Croatia, as the form book implies, won't end our chances of qualifying for the 2010 World Cup but will cement the public indifference that becomes more discernible all the time.

The greatest danger facing the FA chairman Lord Triesman isn't the failure to make it to South Africa in four years, it seems to me.

The prospect that should mortify him is that, when England don't qualify, no one will give a damn.

Lewis can reign again

In Belgium, once again the Gene Kelly of Grand Prix racing performed superbly in the rain to take the chequered flag, if not the 10 points that generally go with that.

The fine details of Grand Prix regulations are far beyond my comprehension, so I won't pretend to have much idea whether the appeal of Lewis Hamilton against his relegation to third place for cutting a chicane has a chance.

But the case for the defence hardly looks watertight, since it appears to rely on Hamilton slowing down after overtaking Kimi Raikkonen to let the Finn overtake him back. Even in the mystifying world of F1, it's hard to see this clear admission of guilt doubling up as decisive evidence of his innocence.

The elegant thing to do would be to accept the verdict, and hire the best Native American rain dancer for the rest of the season.