For the third time this season Rafael Nadal ended the Scot’s hopes of winning a major title, and it is the Spaniard who will now face Novak Djokovic in tonight’s US Open final.

Nadal’s aggressive play proved very difficult to deal with for Murray, and the Scot found himself two sets down before he began to assert his authority on the match.

In the third set the momentum of the match swung back and forth as the pair traded breaks, and eventually it was Murray who was able to secure the crucial break and then serve out the set to reduce Nadal’s lead.

Murray had a chance for an early break at 1-1 in the fourth set after fighting back from 40-0 down but Nadal was able to hold on and then regain control of the match with some heavy hitting from the baseline that allowed him to break for 3-1.

The Spaniard was brimming with confidence by this point and Murray had no answer for his power as he closed out a 6-4 6-2 3-6 6-2 victory, a disappointing but not unexpected outcome for Britain’s number one.

An already difficult task was made even harder for Murray last week when the US Open organisers opted to have him start his campaign on Wednesday, two days after Roger Federer and one after Novak Djokovic and Nadal.

Some wet and wild New York weather caused further disruption at the start of the tournament’s second week and as Murray resumed his fourth round match against Donald Young on Thursday he was facing the possibility of four matches in four days to reach the final.

After defeating Young in straight sets Murray had a more testing encounter with big serving American John Isner, eventually coming through after four gruelling sets 7-5 6-4 3-6 7-6 (7-2).  Nadal’s path to semi-final was less tiring; he dumped both Gilles Muller and Andy Roddick out in straight sets.

Murray cited tiredness as a possible reason for his semi-final exit but was also effusive in his praise of Nadal in his post match press conference.

He said: “I felt I did pretty well considering I had to play three games over three days.  In my opinion Rafa is the best ever so you have to play great against him if you want to win.”

Despite the disappointment of another slam defeat to Nadal the Scot should be praised for becoming only the seventh player in the open era (and first Brit) to reach four grand slam semi-finals in one season.

That shows a great level of consistency, and the fact that four of those seven players are currently active on the tour is testament to the widely held belief that this is a golden age for tennis.

He will have other chances in the big tournaments but his career should not just be judged on how many grand slam titles he has won.  Murray has come to terms with the possibility that he may never win one, but is still determined to give it his all.

Murray said: “It has been a good year.  It’s difficult to take each time you get to that stage and come up a little short.

“Winning a slam is something I want to achieve but if you want to judge someone purely on slams, I would have had a terrible career.  But I don’t really feel like I have, there have been other things I have done really well.

“I’m getting a little bit closer each year; this season was my best in the slams.”

The other half of the men’s top four met in the other US Open semi-final and produced a classic as Novak Djokovic came back from two sets down to beat Roger Federer 6-7 (7-9) 4-6 6-3 6-2 7-5.

Federer held two match points while serving at 5-3 up in the fifth set but Djokovic produced a dazzling forehand return on the first and eventually fought back to improve his 2011 record to 63-2.  It is the second grand slam in a row where Federer has lost a match from two sets to love up, and incredibly before his loss to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga at Wimbledon his record at two sets up was 178-0.

The form of the sport’s top two players suggests that we could be in for a classic in the final tonight, which is due to start at 9pm BST.  Djokovic has the edge, he has beaten Nadal in each of their five meetings this season, including in the Wimbledon final, and will be looking to join an elite group of players by winning his third grand slam of the season.

However, Nadal should never be written off.  He has a huge hunger to regain the world number one crown and could set himself back on that path with victory tonight.

His Dutch opponent looked to be on the brink of a massive upset as he clinched a tight first set tiebreak and then raced to the second set, but Murray clawed his way back into the match and eventually prevailed 6-7 (5-7) 2-6 6-2 6-0 6-4.

Murray’s US Open credentials will come under scrutiny after he came so close to exiting the tournament at this early stage, especially given the ease with which rivals Djokovic, Nadal and Federer progressed, but he again proved his mental strength after securing a win from two sets to love down for the sixth time in his career.

Haase, ranked 41^st in the world, took an early lead in the match but was then broken as he served for the opening set.  Murray, however, failed to capitalise on the shift in momentum and let a 4-1 lead in the tiebreak slip with a number of uncharacteristic errors as Haase clinched it 7-5.

Murray’s backhand was causing him problems and an early break in the second set for the Dutchman did nothing to settle Scottish nerves.  Haase was growing in confidence as Murray’s frustration mounted and an error-strewn service game from the Scot at 5-2 down saw him concede the second set.

The third set started in better fashion for Murray, and he let out a huge roar as he battled back from 40-0 down to grind out the first break of the set.  It turned out to be a big turning point as Haase’s level plummeted and he received treatment for a back injury as Murray claimed the third 6-2.

The Dutchman looked uncomfortable and frustrated as Murray secured another early break in the fourth and his mind wandered as the Scot raced easily to the fourth set 6-0 to take the match into a decider.

Murray built a commanding 4-0 lead in the fifth, on the back of 13 games in a row, and looked to be cruising to victory before Haase incredibly fought his way back into it.  With nothing to lose the Dutchman went for broke with some big shots and was able to recapture some of his early match form, levelling the fifth set at 4-4.

The allegiances of the crowd were swaying back and forth and Murray had a few choice words for some spectators cheering against him as he crucially broke back to serve for the match at 5-4.  Haase then saved two match points, including one with a challenge that landed millimetres inside the line, and carved out a break point of his own before Murray eventually clinched the match when a Haase forehand drifted long.

It was relief as much as celebration for Murray in the immediate aftermath of this amazing contest, one that looked like a lost cause at two sets down, a certainty at two sets all and eventually turned out to be one of the most topsy-turvy matches you’re ever likely to see.

Feliciano Lopez now awaits Murray in round three on Sunday. The Spaniard was swept aside by Murray in straight sets at Wimbledon in June and has never beaten the Scot in five outings.  After this evening’s twitchy drama, a more comfortable Sunday would be very welcome.

On Monday night, and for the third time in 2011, I was dumped.  It has become a peculiar trend, as up until this year it had never happened before.  Though I’ve never really had a particularly serious relationship, even on the occasions where it’s been anything slightly resembling so I have always been the one to press the eject button.

It is therefore a strange and new sensation to be kicked to the kerb for the third time in such a short space of time.  This won’t be a whiny, self-pitying post about how I worry that things will never work out for me.  In fact, quite the opposite, I have been able to get over these knockbacks in a matter of hours.  Or even minutes.

In fact, right after I left this girl’s flat off Duke Street in Dennistoun I put a Shins album on my Ipod and by the time I passed the Royal Infirmary I was over it.

As much as I would like to claim that this is all down to the incredible strength of mind that regular meditation and study of Buddhist philosophy has given me it has a lot more to do with my heart not really being in it.  Earlier in the year when something similar happened I remember actually feeling relieved about it when it was all over.

Suddenly it’s like you’re free to do anything you want (even though you always were) and it’s a nice feeling.  It’s pretty strange behaviour that I’m willing to feel constrained by the limits of a pretty poor month-long relationship, but perhaps recently I have been either too patient or too polite to be the one to pipe up and say “hang on, we have very little in common and don’t find each other particularly amusing or charming”.  Even if that’s what I’ve been thinking for weeks.

I have listened to friends struggle to come to terms with failing relationships, even held some in my arms as they wept about things breaking down, while not being able to fully understand the situation.  I suppose it is pretty lucky on my part that I have never had my heart broken, though perhaps unlucky for never being in the situation in the first place.

Instead my recent relationship cycle seems to be a much shorter one.  I get in, realise it’s not that great but I might as well put up with it and see what happens and then a short time later I’m given the heave-ho presumably for not being interesting, funny or attractive enough.

"Hi, I'm George. I'm unemployed and I live with my parents."

I can’t compare these six weeks of indifference and awkward silences to the pain that some of my friends have been through after the breakdowns of serious relationships, but right now I have nothing else in the locker.

Indeed, it is not my intention for my life to resemble a sitcom but my unsuccessful dalliances with the fairer sex this year are making me feel more and more like George Costanza.  They’re fraught with niggly little issues, several hours of awkward conversation and then it’s over before the tea gets cold.

Seinfeld is and probably always will be one of my favourite programmes but I think the comedic element will diminish if I start identifying too many similarities in my own real world relationships.

In fact, do you remember the episode where Jerry is dating an aspiring actress who insists on practicing scenes with him?  She is dreadful and he knows it.  He talks with George about how his brain and his penis are having a game of chess, a game that his penis always wins.  I’ve been thinking about that recently, though I am slightly bemused that I’ve been binned off before that even became an issue.

The time will probably come where things work out a lot better than this.  And then when the KB follows it’ll probably sting pretty badly.  But for now I’m really okay with this.  A few days ago I was talking about how things were going with Jon, one of my best friends, and after I gave him my assessment he said that it sounded like it wasn’t worth the trouble.

Yesterday after playing tennis with my buddy Joss I remarked to him over the net that I was still into her but that I was “getting the overwhelming feeling that she doesn’t seem to care about anything I do or say”.

“That sounds like something that is not going to work out”, he said.  He was right, of course, and obviously I knew he was.  I knew it ages ago.

You can’t lose what you don’t have.  So what have I lost here then? Nothing, I guess.  2011 looks like it’s shaping up to be the year of the short shrift painless breakup.  That has a certain ring to it; I just wish that I could get the time back.

It’s not the mayor’s fault that the stadium collapsed!

Yes yes, I know.  The hype over a potential British winner of the title after a long, agonising wait is about to reach its annual climax but even someone as normally cautious as I am about Murray’s chances cannot help but get caught up in the hysteria.

Murray's year? photo: dailymail.co.uk

I believe this despite the fact that this year’s tournament is being considered the hardest to win in a long time.  Ahead of Murray there are three clear favourites:  Roger Federer, as a six-time Wimbledon champion, is the bookmaker’s choice, Rafael Nadal is last year’s winner and you’ve also got Novak Djokovic playing the best tennis of his career with six titles and a 41-1 record to his name this season.

But there have been glimmers of hope in a few of Murray’s performances this year that suggest that he could be on the brink of something special.  His ruthless thrashing of Andy Roddick in the Queen’s club semi-final was impressive and he followed it up with a gutsy three set victory over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga to become the first British man to win the tournament for a second time since 1925.

At Roland Garros he played through the pain barrier to secure a fantastic comeback win in the fourth round against Viktor Troicki and then went on to secure a place in the semi-finals there for the first time.  At the Rome Masters he surprised many by very nearly inflicting a first defeat of the season on Djokovic as he served for the match in the final set.

The crushing disappointment of his defeat in the Australian Open final had a huge effect on his early season results and for two months Murray struggled for form.  Consecutive defeats against players ranked outside the top 100 at the Masters events in Indian Wells and Miami had fans fearing the worst.

However, a solid display in the clay court season seems to have rejuvenated Murray and it looks as if he’s ready to hit top gear just in time for the showpiece event of the tennis calendar.  The pressure is building as a nation once again pins its hope on him but he seems to be taking it all in his stride and saying the right things to the media.

As many pundits talk about the huge burden of expectation that the home favourites face Murray has admitted that he actually relishes playing front of a home crowd.  He told the BBC today: “In every other sport having home advantage is seen as a good thing.  For some reason in tennis people think that there’s just so much extra pressure and it just isn’t the case.”

A semi-final berth is certainly within his grasp and from there, who knows?

Murray though will not be taking any early round victories for granted, especially given the difficulty of his quarter of the draw.

In fact, it is rather ominous how many former conquerors of him in grand slams that he has in his part of the draw.  Marin Cilic, who thrashed the Scot at the US Open in 2009, is seeded to meet Murray in the third round, a potential fourth round opponent is 14^th seed Stanislas Wawrinka, who beat Murray in the 2010 US Open, and in the quarter-finals he is likely to meet Andy Roddick, who shocked Murray with a four set victory in the 2009 Wimbledon semi-finals.

While Murray’s recent good form has got me believing that this could be his year, I think the smart money is still on Novak Djokovic, who at 4/1 third favourite seems like incredible value.

Novak Djokovic: the next Wimbledon champion? photo ndtv.com

In Federer and Nadal we have possibly the two greatest players of all time, but this season Novak Djokovic has done the unthinkable and emerged as the tour’s standout player.  The manner in which he has defeated Nadal in four consecutive finals leads me to believe that he is ready to take the next step and capture his first Wimbledon title.

Nadal, Federer, Murray and the other 124 players in the draw will surely disagree with that assessment and be out to prove their own credentials.  Whichever way the pendulum swings, we are surely in for another fantastic Wimbledon fortnight.

So here we are, the 19^th of June.  I get a funny sort of feeling in the second half of the month, as if I can’t quite believe that so much of it is gone already.  The beginning of the month feels really positive, it’s another new beginning and possibilities feel somehow greater at that point.

Later on in the month I’m more likely to look back and worry about wasting time.  I do this a lot less than I used to.  Eventually you have to draw a line somewhere, and realise that if you’re enjoying your life then having regrets about not doing enough are pointless.  There is a good setup in place and plenty to look forward to in the short term.

We’re living in a pretty volatile time though.  It’s difficult to tell if I’m getting shivers purely because I’m growing up and worrying needlessly about things like a lot of normal adults do, or if it’s because of how uncertain things are on a global level.  I’m pretty sure that it’s the first one, because I have resisted committing to anything since I graduated from university, and if anything a nationwide shortage in jobs and opportunities has made me feel more justified in being so flaky.

I took some time between studying and pint pulling to write a post last month.  I needed a pick-me-up but it turned out to be a long whinge rather than a stress reliever.  Reading it back just made me cringe; it seemed so self-pitying for no worthwhile reason.  The past week has been decent, and it’s good to look back to when you were feeling a little low and see that you came back out the other side without anything major actually happening…

The last few weeks have been a little frustrating for me.  I think I’ve just been caught in a funk.

Classes have been boring me, work has been a pain, motivation is lacking and even on the tennis court I can’t seem find any form.  The year began like every other one: big plans, lists of goals, there’s the expectation that things will shoot off into orbit at any moment plucking you from the monotony of day-to-day living and providing you with a reason to wake up every morning feeling energised.

This isn’t an unfamiliar place.  By the age of 25 I feel like I’ve had enough ups and downs to know and expect them.  The good thing is that they don’t last too long.  However, I still have a feeling that I should be able to avoid the troughs when I see them coming.

The resistance calendar is still in my journal, but it hasn’t been updated in months.  There are half written articles, blogs and chapters dotted all around my bedroom, but the desire to sit down and thrash them out seems to have left me.  I have been thinking about getting all my shit in order for so long that I always expect it will just happen one day, but without any sort of commitment I am on a hiding to nothing there.

I breezed through the rest of my classes and exams without much difficulty.  After getting mucked about one too many times at work I decided to pack it in and spend time looking for something better.  I worked hard on a new serving technique and suddenly I went back to having a lot of fun on the tennis court.

Little changes occur and I go back to feeling good.  Productivity hasn’t increased much and I still get frustrated with myself for being lazy.  I’ve been waiting for someone to stop by and slap me in the face every day but it’s all on me.  No one has as much riding on me getting on in life as I do.  I need to remember that.

Huge changes aren’t necessary, it’s only baby steps.  So how about pushing a little harder to be creative?  How about sending those emails to people who can help me push on with my career?  I’m not going to get annoyed about shanking that shot five feet wide; there’ll be another ball along in ten seconds.

* – I am aware that the lyrics are ‘I made a vow to carry you home’, but this was a better fit

The Serb was at a disadvantage following yesterday’s gruelling three set win over Andy Murray but despite this, he showed little sign of fatigue and continued where he left off in last week’s Madrid final against the Spaniard, punishing him with consistently deep groundstrokes as he claimed his fourth Masters series title of the season in straight sets.

Nadal’s play was as brutal as ever, and the two players produced a great spectacle, but time and time again Djokovic produced incredible shots that his opponent simply had no answer to.  His powerful and accurate returning put the Spaniard under pressure in nearly every service game, and the Serb’s speed at turning defence into attack was amazing to watch.

He looks a different beast compared to previous years, and apparently he credits a lot of this to a Serbian nutritionist who last year discovered that he is allergic to gluten products.  Djokovic has cut out bread, pizza and pasta from his diet and the results have been astonishing.

Roger Federer has criticised him in the past for giving in too easily, he has made a habit of retiring from matches in the past, but now with some of his physical problems firmly behind him he appears to be stronger, sharper and more focused.

The second grand slam of the year at Roland Garros begins next Sunday, and after defeating Nadal for the fourth straight time this season Djokovic must now be considered the favourite, an idea that would have seemed ludicrous at the start of the year.  The 23-year-old has the psychological advantage having defeated Nadal in four finals this season, but Nadal’s incredible 45-1 record on the red dirt of Paris means that only a fool would write him off.

Andy Murray will be happy with his week in Rome, reaching the semi-final and coming within two points of ending Djokovic’s winning run before eventually falling 6-1 3-6 7-6.  After a sloppy start he proved to be a match for the Serb, and he will head to Paris with a lot of belief that he can be a major threat on clay.

Murray’s run to the semi-final at Monte Carlo last month would have been similarly morale-boosting, and if he can ditch the concentration lapses and achieve a level of consistency then we should see make a good run into the tournament’s second week.

No player has achieved the feat since Rod Laver in 1969, although Roger Federer has twice been very close. In 2006 and 2007 he won three of the four major titles but fell to Nadal in the French Open final.

Nadal’s incredible ability to adapt and develop his all-court game suggests that it may only be a matter of time before he is able to win all four in the same season.  After all, were it not for quarter-final loss to Andy Murray at the 2009 Australian Open he may well have clinched the calendar slam last season.

The general consensus that followed Ferrer’s shock win over Nadal was that the chance of someone winning the calendar slam was over for another year, but could Novak Djokovic have something to say about that?

The 23-year old Serb plays Nadal in the Indian Wells masters final tonight, and securing a victory could set down a marker for the rest of the season.  Djokovic has started the season in scintillating form; his 17-0 match record has seen him capture two titles including his second career grand slam in Melbourne and in those 17 wins he has dropped only four sets.

He recorded his third consecutive win over Roger Federer last night and the 6-3 3-6 6-2 semi-final victory has also seen him move above Federer to second in the world rankings.  This could result in a permament change at the top of the men’s game, will we ever see Federer above Djokovic in the rankings again?

It is perhaps too early to tell but this could be the start of a new era of dominance for Djokovic.  In this form he is a threat at every tournament, and it is reasonable to expect that he will be one of the favourites in the three remaining slams this year.

Certainly at the US Open, where he is a two-time finalist, he will be expected to challenge but the Serb is adept on every surface and has also enjoyed reasonable success at Roland Garros and Wimbledon in his career so far.

Nadal has beaten Djokovic in all ten of their meetings on clay, so it would be a major shock if he managed to dethrone the indisputable King of Clay at Roland Garros. However, the longer his unbeaten record goes on the less ludicrous the idea of him winning all four slams this season will become.

Well actually, I suppose it is.  Too fair even, you might say.  The NHL’s draft system ensures a fair distribution of quality players and prevents the big teams from consistently dominating at the expense of their less illustrious rivals.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with the system of youth player selection in North American sports allow me a moment to explain:

If there is a highly talented 18-year old who wants nothing more than to play for his beloved Calgary Flames I am afraid both he and the Flames are fresh out of luck.  He cannot simply be signed by Calgary, his rights need to be secured by them in an entry draft which occurs every summer for NHL teams.  If this 18-year old is the best available amateur prospect then unless the Flames hold the number one pick he is headed elsewhere.

There are five rounds where teams can select players, with the teams ordered in the draft based on where they finished in the standings the previous year.  The worst team out of 30 receives the top pick; the second worst receives the second pick and so on, with the best team receiving the last pick of the first round of the draft.

There are now subtle nuances involving draft lotteries and Stanley Cup winners to make it slightly more interesting but that is the basic premise.  The idea is to create a level playing field.  There are salary restrictions for every player and team which prevent teams with more revenue streams from outmuscling their opponents financially.

I can see the merits of the system.  Especially coming from Scotland where two teams have hoovered up 95% of the support, money and won 40 out of the last 44 league championships.  To us, the idea of an even competition is a completely alien concept.

That said, there is something very peculiar about a situation where the richest and best supported team in the league is one of the worst teams, and has been bumbling around the lower reaches of the league for quite a few years now.

I am talking about the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Real Madrid of the hockey world and my first sporting love.   As a young boy growing up in southern Ontario I never had any say in becoming a Leafs fan.  The hysteria caused by the resurgent team of 1992-1993 that came within one goal of reaching the Stanley Cup final made it seem like hockey was the only thing that mattered.

The level of support generated in southern Ontario for the hard luck Buds is unmatched, and only historic rivals the Montreal Canadiens can claim to be anywhere near their level in terms of fanbase and turnover.

Despite this, the Leafs currently hold the dubious honour of having the longest active cup drought, an honour that was passed on last season when the Chicago Blackhawks clinched their first cup since 1961.  The Leafs last cup win came in 1967 when the league consisted of only six teams.  Since then they have been mostly dreadful, with only a handful of successful seasons to cling to and just one divisional triumph, in the 1999-2000 season.   Years of mismanagement and sheer bad luck have put the Leafs in this unenviable position.

There were a couple of other good playoff runs in the late 90s and early 00s, but in recent times being a Leafs fan has been hard to stomach.  They have missed the playoffs for the last five years running, and the management’s penchant for signing ageing former greats on ludicrous contracts during the past decade has really come back to haunt the team.

Trading away high draft picks (collected as a result of being so poor in the last five years) on a regular basis for puzzlingly bad 30-something players has been a regular feature of the last five years, but even despite all of this the Leafs still command an enormous and boisterous support at every single home game.

While living in Toronto in 2009 I was hoping that the Leafs would have a playoff year and I could relive some of the great times I remember as a kid watching them play nerve jangling playoff hockey.  Unfortunately, the team were terrible and it didn’t happen.

At least, I thought, that would make it easier to get tickets to see a game. But that was not the case either.  The Leafs have sold out every single home game since 2002 and tickets are still like gold dust, despite the declining fortunes of the team.

Southern Ontario is a hockey mad place and deserving of a successful team.  A huge amount of great NHL players come from the region, and if in some alternate universe a rule was introduced whereby players could only play for their own home province or state then the cup would likely never fall out of the hands of Toronto or Montreal.

Fast forward to the present season and we see a familiar story.  It was written off as yet another ‘rebuilding’ year as a mid-season slump dropped the Leafs out of playoff contention but an 8-2-2 run in February has moved the Leafs to within four points of a playoff spot and has fans starting to believe that the young, new look Leafs are on the brink of bringing good times back to Toronto.

Could this year be our year? Yes.  For some reason, we all still believe.

It could have finished in better circumstances, of course, but it was still an excellent tournament.  Even for Andy Murray.  This is fast becoming a quarterly event but I feel the need to leap to his defence once again.

The Murray Files

He lost his third slam final and didn’t play at his best, but a lot of credit must go to Novak Djokovic, not only for his performance in the final but throughout the entire tournament.  Any player who can eliminate Tomas Berdych, Roger Federer and Andy Murray consecutively and all in straight sets must be doing something right and the Serb looks to be in the form of his life right now.

To those who were following the tournament in depth it won’t have come as a big surprise to see him defeat Murray on Sunday.  It was easier than most would have expected perhaps, but we’re talking about the third best player in the world playing as well as he ever has (an admission by Novak himself).  This is something that was not often mentioned by the many slating Murray on facebook and twitter on Sunday.

The era of social networking has changed the way a lot of people interact and has given a voice to many.  In the past, these opinions wouldn’t be made publically and when it comes to half-baked tennis analysis I really wish things had stayed that way.

Within a few hours of Djokovic lifting the title the internet was filled with the same anti-Murray garbage that is becoming very familiar every time he loses in a grand slam.  Suddenly, after watching two hours of tennis on BBC1 there are thousands of all-knowing authorities who are just itching to stick the boot in.

“Why does he keep hitting it into the net?”

I have come to expect it now, but it was difficult to avoid wave after wave of stupidity coming right at me.  ‘Murray’s a choker’, ‘he always blows it in the big matches’, ‘he’ll never win a grand slam’ and ‘what a useless Scottish prick’ were just a small selection of the wonderfully informed and objective comments I waded through.

Murray might never win a grand slam and in his post-tournament press conference he said that he has come to terms with that fact himself.  If he doesn’t, it won’t be the end of the world and even if he retired right now he’d still do so as an extremely successful man, the best male player from Great Britain for over 70 years.

It is not a given that he will win one, but I still think that his time will come.  The odds are in his favour.  He is only 23 years old, he’s looking at another six or seven years in the world’s top 20 realistically, which means he’ll have another pop at another 25-30 slams before he even begins to consider retiring (tennis players usually retire between the ages of 30 and 35, though there some exceptions).

A quick look through the history books makes things appear a little rosier for Murray too.  Andre Agassi lost the first three grand slam finals he reached, and still went on to win eight major titles.  Ivan Lendl lost his first four slam finals, plus a further seven throughout his career, and also still went on to claim eight grand slam titles.  Those two didn’t play every match as well as they could have, and there were a lot of bumps on their respective roads to success.

I have seen nothing to suggest that Andy Murray is incapable of taking a similar route in his career, so let’s put a lid on all the over-the-top negative rubbish that one defeat generates and get right behind him for the rest of the season.

I reserve the right to rehash this post when he loses in the fourth round of Roland Garros to a clay court specialist or in straight sets to Rafael Nadal in the Wimbledon semis.

The Tournament Files

With that Murray abuse inspired diatribe out of the way it would now be nice to discuss the rest of the tournament.  I always really look forward to the Australian Open, in the past few years it has produced some incredible matches and we got a couple of crackers this year too.

The fairytale runs to the final of Marcos Baghdatis (2006) and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (2008) are great memories for me and it is the grand slam that seems to produce the most upsets and longest matches (Isner-Mahut style serving contests aside).

I was in Australia during the 2008 tournament and it remains a major regret of mine that I never got to see any matches while I was there.  Ninth-seeded Murray was defeated by relatively unknown Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (cue the British media jumping all over Andy for letting us down AGAIN) in the first round but must have felt somewhat vindicated when Tsonga then went on to batter Richard Gasquet, Mikhail Youzhny and Rafael Nadal on his way to a final against eventual winner Novak Djokovic.

In 2009 Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena was the scene for two all-time classics in the space of just three days.  Nadal’s five set win over Fernando Verdasco in the 2009 semi-final is probably the greatest match I have ever seen, and he followed that up by defeating Roger Federer two days later, again in five sets, to claim his first Australian title.

Last year’s star was Marin Cilic, who reached his first grand slam semi-final after two gruelling five set wins over Juan Martin Del Potro and Andy Roddick before he was eliminated in four sets by Andy Murray.  The story was a similar one for Murray last year, he was relatively untroubled until he reached the final and came unstuck against an in-form Roger Federer.

I’m torn between a few for choosing my favourite match from this year’s tournament so I’ll pick three:

(27) David Nalbandian def. Lleyton Hewitt 3-6 6-4 3-6 7-6 9-7, first round

When these two met in the 2002 Wimbledon final not many would have predicted that they wouldn’t go on to win any further major titles.  Hewitt fell away sharply as Roger Federer emerged and began to dominate the sport in the middle years of the last decade while Nalbandian is probably one of the greatest players to have not won a grand slam.  Hewitt is no stranger to late-night five set drama at this tournament having triumphed over Baghdatis and Gonzalez in the past but on this occasion it was Nalbandian, dressed like a 1980s pop star, that came through thanks to some big serving.

(2) Roger Federer def. Gilles Simon 6-2 6-3 4-6 4-6 6-3, second round

Federer comfortably took the first two sets before Simon sprung into life and began to dominate from the baseline, taking the match into a deciding set which Federer claimed 6-3.  Simon is a former world number eight who has been plagued by injuries but if he can perform at this level regularly he will certainly be back in the top 10 soon enough.  This one really deserved to have taken place in the later stages of the tournament.

Milos Raonic def. (10) Mikhail Youzhny 6-4 7-5 4-6 6-4, third round

It is perhaps a little biased to choose this match ahead of either of Alexandr Dolgopolov’s five set upsets against Tsonga and Soderling but I cannot let the first Canadian to reach the fourth round of a grand slam since 1999 go unmentioned.  I will be keeping a firm eye on this fellow, especially since he has said that he intends to represent Canada throughout his career.  That marks a refreshing change from the ship-jumping antics of Greg Rusedski, Owen Hargreaves and Jonathan de Guzman.