The brain has a tendency to meander when the rain’s lashing down in Paris, as it has recently.
Against the sound beat of early summer showers dropping on to consistently called-for dirt court covers, the characteristics of champions past show up in the puddles for a moment before vanishing into the social occasion despair.
Nastase, Borg, Wilander, Lendl, Brugera, Moya, Kuerten. What’s more, in all likelihood the best of all of them, Rafa Nadal. He battled back tears in the media room when he needed to pull back, harmed.
It was very much for the tennis Gods, however: the sky just opened, discharging what appeared like an interminable downpour.
Rain is no more bizarre to a specific Scotsman, obviously. Andy Murray experienced childhood in Dunblane reviling seeing the stuff.
How was he expected to rehearse on the few courts that did exist when it was hurling it down? There are valuable couple of indoor courts now, don’t bother in the mid-to-late 1990s, when he was sharpening his aptitudes anyway he could.
What’s more, to get great on ‘terre battue’, as they call it here, how on earth is that workable for somebody from Scotland, where serviceable dirt courts are hard to find on the few days a year when the rain holds off? He went to Barcelona when he was 15 to take in his specialty on the red earth of the Sanchez Casal institute.
In any case, even by then, he would have been no less than 10 years behind his new opponent Rafa, who one speculations essentially fell on to an earth court from his bunk.
How amazing, then, to believe that Murray’s name could enhance the renowned Coupe des Mousquetaires trophy. A thought since a long time ago exiled from the domains of the whimsical. He began winning on dirt a year ago and was just ceased from achieving a first French Open final in a five-set battle with that somewhat helpful apprentice from Serbia, Novak Djokovic.
On the red soil this year, Murray cleaned up another Masters arrangement title – in Rome – having challenged the final in Madrid and a semi-final in Monte Carlo. He’s a serial mud court contender nowadays, in spite of the fact that it took him a while to discover his feet on a more tricky than expected surface here at the Porte d’Auteuil.
As monsieurs Stepanek and Bourgue would bear witness to, he didn’t play like a world number two against them in the primary couple of rounds. What Murray showed more than anything in those matches was yearning and heart – and in addition demonstrating what is a major axiom in any sort of game: a win is a win.
Much better tennis followed in the resulting three rounds as his planning and certainty developed.
