US Open final for Murray

By Simon Briggs, Tennis Correspondent in New York

Every professional has to be able to deal with adverse conditions, but this was something else. At one point, Murray was halfway through his service action when one of the chairs the players sit on at the changeovers flew into the air and landed on the court. Even his girlfriend Kim Sears, she of the most requested hairstyle in London salons, had to tie her famous locks into a bun.
 

In some tournaments, play can be suspended if the temperature moves above 40 degrees. There is no equivalent rule for days when the ball is moving around as crazily as a peach stone in a blender, though Berdych was calling for one last night. The Czech’s hopes were blown to the four winds as Murray finally triumphed by a 5-7, 6-2, 6-1, 7-6 scoreline, fighting his way through to his second US Open final.
 

“Those were some of the hardest conditions I’ve ever played in for sure,” Murray said afterwards, “and I come from Scotland so that is saying something. You had to focus for every single point, you had to get yourself into position. It was hard to serve – I wasn’t really going for aces because it was so hard to control the second serve.”
 

Of the two men, though, Berdych was the one suffering more obviously with the conditions. For one thing, his ball toss is one of the highest in the professional game, and it was often blown three or four feet out of alignment by the time it came down again. For another, he likes to unload all of his 6ft 5in, 200lb frame into his groundstrokes – and this clearly much easier to do on a still day.
 

“There should be some rule about conditions,” Berdych said afterwards. “The people here want a show, but this was not a show. It was just about trying to put the ball over the net. I thought I had a good chance in this match but the wind blew it away from me.”
 
 
In fact, this first semi-final made for strangely compelling viewing, partly because it was so different to the norm. Although neither player enjoyed the wind, it clearly suited Murray, who grew up playing a cerebral type of tennis based around lob and drop shots. Even now, Brad Gilbert reckons that, “Murray can get away with more bulls--- than just about anybody.”
 
The mature Murray has broadened his range with a power game capable of matching the great majority of players (although Berdych, on one of his on-days, might be an exception there). But it is still a great advantage to know you can switch to another tack at will. Murray might not have a single shot as big as the Berdych forehand, but he does have a phenomenal variety of options, and once he had got his teeth into this match, his supreme courtcraft came to the fore.
 
When you look at how dominant Murray was through the middle part of this match, it might be a surprise that he needed four sets to get the win. But then he had started out a little tentative and tight, lacking the feel of the ball on his racket that is so important when trying to work with a strong wind.
 
You had to play in a completely different style depending where you were standing on the court. From under the President’s Box, the gusts were pushing you back, and Murray had some fun with a couple of outrageous drop shots that very nearly bounced back onto his own side of the net after pitching.
 
From the other end, with the wind at your back, you only had to tap the ball an ounce or two too hard for it to fly long. So Murray opted to keep it low with plenty of sliced shots on both sides. Then, once Berdych gave him a short ball to go after, he would ease it smoothly into the gap for a topspin winner.
 
With the exception of that slightly shaky first set, this was a masterpiece of strategy and control. Murray finished with a tally of 37 winners and just 20 unforced errors, which was quite exceptional on a day when most park players would opt to shelve their rackets and go to the cinema instead.
 
Berdych, by contrast, made no fewer than 64 errors. After holding himself together for the first 80 minutes or so, he went into a sluggish period where his feet were slow and his sights completely out of kilter. In fact, Murray should have finished the job off rather more quickly than he actually did, because he held two break points for a 4-0 lead in the fourth set, only to rifle a backhand pass into the net cord when the match was there for the taking.
 
Berdych managed to restore equality in that fourth set with some gung-ho big-hitting, but Murray always had the slight edge when it came to consistency and control. When the players found themselves a tiebreak, he fought his way back from 5-2 down to clinch the match 9-7 on a Berdych forehand error. It was an appropriate way for it to end. - Telegraph