Murray Minced

“It’s going to be a long flight home for Andy,” mused Tim Henman to the nodding agreement of his BBC colleagues. But then again it always is from the Australian Open. The disappointment will be that Murray failed to play the final to anything like his own potential as he got brushed aside by an imperious Novak Djokovic 6-4 6-2 6-3. The emphatic scoreline didn’t even flatter the Serb who on the day was superior to his British opponent in every department.

Murray struggled to keep his first serve above 50% throughout while Djovokic coasted along nearer the 70% mark. Had the world number three taken a few more of his countless break points then the final scoreline really could have been embarrassing.

The contest was, admittedly, a close one for most of the first set. Serves were held by both men for the first nine games before Djokovic broke at the best possible moment to clinch the lead in an instant. This triggered a run of seven consecutive games for the Serb that Murray would never recover from.

There were brief hopes of a revival when Murray got his nose in front for the first time by breaking serve in the opening game of set three. The TV cameras quickly panned to the dubious ‘Great Scott’ banner that should have told us that the omens were bad. There was barely time to question whether the fans came from ‘Scottland’ or whether there was in fact an impressive gentleman called Scott also present whom we were unaware of. No matter, Djokovic was soon back in control with an immediate break of his own.

The world number three soon put the British public out of their misery by overcoming any nerves with two more games taken off the Murray serve to ease to victory. Djokovic is starting to look like a genuine threat to the established order in tennis and is now the man to beat. Some bookmakers have seemed slow to react however and the 10/1 available on him to win Wimbledon with Boylesports looks highly appetising. The best price of 6/1 on Murray winning at SW17 with Coral looks distinctly less appealing today.