Watch: Andy Murray says ‘this game isn’t for me any more’ in crushing defeat by 18-year-old
Andy Murray could be seen mouthing the words “this game is not for me any more” during another demoralising defeat, this time at the hands of 18-year-old Czech prospect Jakub Mensik.
The loss was the tenth that Murray has suffered in his past 12 outings, and it must have been all the more upsetting because it featured one of the worst misses of his career: a routine backhand volley that he netted while 6-4 up in the first-set tie-break.
Make that shot – which would have been a gimme for most club players, let alone a three-time major champion – and Murray would have led by a set against a young and untested opponent who was, at that stage, battling mental demons of his own.
Instead, Murray was forced to go the long way around. And it became a very long way as the match duration extended to fully 3hr 23min before Mensik – who gained strength from his lucky escape – finished the job with a big serve and chunky follow-up forehand.
The frustration of this 7-6, 6-7, 7-6 defeat in the desert lay in the quality that Murray brought to the court at times, especially when he was apparently dead and buried in the third set at 5-2 down.
If you look at the separate elements of his game, there is still a lot to like. Murray actually won more points than he lost in this match – 124 to 122 – and collected a high proportion of them via well-constructed net approaches. Somehow, though, he has lost the art of winning the points that matter.
That botched volley we covered earlier was the classic example. If it felt familiar, that is because he messed up a very similar shot to give away a tie-break in Madrid last year – a miss he later bemoaned by telling a reporter, “You probably would have made that”.
Later in Wednesday’s match in Doha, Murray gambled on the penultimate point of the match by serve-volleying for the first time. But he failed to middle that volley either, leaving Mensik – the world No 116 – with a sitter of a passing shot. Mensik duly found a winning backhand to bring up match point, which he converted without fuss.
Another concern must be Murray’s staying power. He has now lost seven straight deciding sets, stretching back to mid-September. Here, he seemed to have some sort of dizzy spell early in the third set, judging by an alarming moment when he fell over while moving forward to retrieve a short Mensik volley. Although Murray then experienced an adrenalin surge in his fightback from 5-2 down, his purple patch failed to last into the concluding tie-break. For some time now, he has only found his best stuff when the pressure is off – as it was here when his chances seemed to have evaporated.
To compound Murray’s problems, he had started this match so gingerly that he felt like an old car warming up on a cold morning. Murray had required medical treatment for a sore left knee during his previous match, a rare win over world No 75 Alexandre Muller, and there was a creaky air about his movement for the first 15 or 20 minutes, especially when he handed over a freebie of a service-break via three god-awful drop shots.
Murray has repeatedly stressed his commitment to working through this difficult time, but it will not be easy to swallow this latest setback, especially as he was defending a substantial number of rankings points after reaching last year’s Doha final. His ranking will now drop an estimated 16 places to a projected No 66 – his lowest figure in 12 months.
Perhaps that was going though his mind when he missed a juicy break-point chance, late in the second set, and mouthed those telling words, “This game is not for me any more”, in the direction of his watching coach Jonny O’Mara (seen in video below).
"This game is not for me anymore" 🎾 pic.twitter.com/ax10479pvr
— Sky Sports Tennis (@SkySportsTennis) February 21, 2024
Murray will now move on to neighbouring Dubai – knee permitting – for the 500-point event there. It all feels like a painfully uphill struggle.
In other tennis news, last year’s Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz was forced to retire from the Rio Open after rolling his ankle early in his match against Thiago Monteiro.
Alcaraz has already announced his involvement in a Netflix-sponsored exhibition match against Rafael Nadal on March 3 in Las Vegas, including private lessons for members of the public that are priced at $150,000 (£119,000) a pop. At the time of writing, neither player looks assured of reporting fit, although Alcaraz did tell reporters in Rio that his ankle injury did not seem to be as serious as first feared.