Tennis

Soak It In Andy Murray, You Are Finally A Grand Slam Champion

Score one for Great Britain, and score one big one for Andy Murray. The No. 3 men’s tennis player in the world has won the first major of his impressive career, and Great Britain’s first since 1936. Murray defeated Novak Djokovic for the U.S. Open crown (7-6 (12-10), 7-5, 2-6, 3-6, 6-2) in the grandest of finales, one that lasted six minutes shy of five hours. Here’s how Murray pulled it off, and here’s what it means in the grand scheme of things.

First, here is your match point:

It took five Grand Slam finals appearances (’08 U.S. Open, ’10 Australian Open, ’11 Aussie Open, ’12 Wimbledon, ’12 U.S. Open), but the Brit has finally gotten some real hardware for himself, one month after taking home Olympic gold on his home turf. He becomes the first Brit to win a major championship since Fred Perry won the 1936 U.S. Championships a measly 76 years ago.

As for the match itself, it started off looking like a true classic, with a first set that lasted almost 90 minutes and included the longest tiebreak, points-wise, in U.S. Open history. Murray took the first set, then went up 4-0 and 5-2 in the second set, for Djokovic to storm back and even it at five games a piece, only for Murray to win the last two. Djoker won the next two sets fairly handily before the Scot took the match over in the rubber set to capture his first major championship.

Much like is coach Ivan Lendl, it took Murray four losses in Grand Slam finals before he finally took the big boy trophy home. In fact, Murray had only ever won a single set in a major finals before today, the first set in this year’s Wimbledon final against Roger Federer. As for his mentor, Lendl went on to win seven major championships. Now with the knowledge that Murray can compete at a high level with Djokovic, and taking into account that his contemporaries Federer and Nadal are knee-deep in the back 9 of their careers, the future looks bright for the 2012 U.S. Open champ.

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