the worst of his 4 final defeats

Get a grip

Hes called Murray the MUG for a reason.

don't agree

thought he gave a few sets away in the others

Fed had to battle for the breaks there

totally agree we all knew he would chuck it and he did

OP is a fu cking moron,he has won over 20 million in prize money,which makes him a hell of a lot better than you,you pathetic loser,now do one!!! only a total mug could post that getting beat by the best of all time was a poor effort

Complete bottlejob by the Scottish bottler

Legendary bottler.  All that talent and still not a single grand slam to show.

talking bollox

second set got broke from 30-0 at 5-6

and 3rd set got broke from 40-0

chucked it away

ignominy i tell ya

Totally agree he disgraced himself today. He managed to fluke the first set, but could have easily have walked away today with 12 straights set lost in slam finals. If you can't beat a guy 6 years older than you when you are in your prime I don't see the point in bothering competing.

He served poorly throughout it is true. Did well to take it to 4 sets.

Sets 2 & 3 were very close tbf

Murray has been excellent. He was playing the greatest player ever. He gave him a very good game for 3 sets. the roof closing didn't help his chances. anyone who calls Murray a bottler is clueless. Hopefully he'll win a grand slam one day. He deserves to. He's just unlucky to be playing at a time when he has to take on 3 of the all time greats.

Second serve still WTA standard and overall played too defensively as usual.

pah

nothing to do with luck

getting broke from 30-0 and 40-0 at key moments in a GS final shows lack of the stuff you need


pathetic effort - and this from a long term muzza fan

Totally disagree. Today Murray came of age. Bossed the first 2 sets and but for 1 genius game from Fed and the roof closing, could have won this. I've seen enough now to believe he WILL win a slam.

Genius from Federer? Rather aided one feels by the almost complete disappearance of Murray's serve. Not only did the percentgae made decline dramatically, the pace fell of a cliff too

Will never win a wimbledon

After he lost the second set everyone knew he had lost his chance.  Doesn't have it in him to reverse momentum.  I think it was last year at Wimbledon when he was up a set and a break against Nadal.  Nadal stepped it up and Murray proceeded to fade into the sunset losing some incredible amount of games in a row. 

He will probably win a slam one of these days but it will require his opponent being either a poor player who has fluked his way to the final or simply a subpar effort from his foe.

serve was the key, he dropped off his % big time but was still a close one. you can slag the lad off all you like but he is a world class player and will have other chances

he could have won easily if he took the second but as soon as he gifted that game it was over

pathetic, no excuses just under performed at key moments

capitulation

don't agree it was "capitulation" it was not a complete collapse. failed to take his chances
but wrong phrase imo

the 4th set was very much a capitulation. terrible effort

gifted that game

1 set up, 4-4 15 -40 fed serving

at that point murray was odds on to win the title

3 games later he lost the second set, from 30-0 on his own serve, and was never at the races

i'm telling you it was a collapse

personally would n't be surprised if he got over the line at the next major (the one he's most likely to win, imo) but he might be well advised to give the Olympics a miss - not sure that is feasible.

exactly, the commentators and pundits are just trying to make him feel better, which to be honest is doing him no favours. From having 2 chances to break to serve for the set, to losing it from 3-0 up on his own serve. That is a meltdown, no point pretending otherwise.

fed just stepped it up you moron

Which shots in the 30-0 game do you consider melting down Barry?

no he phucking didnt

look at the phecking serving stats, that has nothing to do with Fed, Muzz just dumped em in the net

phuck off unless you wanna mzake something you prick

IT WAS THE WORST of his 4 defeats

1. Understandable, Fed at his best, Muzz 21 years old first final = excusable
2. Fed again no prob
3. Djoko on incredible run, went 40+ matches unbeaten, beat  nadal 6 times or something

4. today muzz set up, break points second set, broken from 5-6 30-0, at home when fully fit

ignominious defeat today

Jul 8, 2012 -- 7:00PM, HansUlrichApfelStrudel wrote:

Which shots in the 30-0 game do you consider melting down Barry?

tbh there was a shocker at 30-15, easy forehand to pass, hit it long

Shot he should have probably made. But nothing like a melt down proportions of volley Fed missed in first game for instance.

I'm so glad there's so many clueless people gambling on things they no nothing about. It makes making profit very easy.

it's like they expect murray to play everything perfect and fed to keep missing

I don't think he melted down myself either. He did have chances certainly but most key points Fed was just better

Actually in the his first slam from what i recall in the 2nd set Fed was 0-3 down and serving 0-40, when Murray hit the line and it was called out but he didn't challenge, then lost that game and set and the next .Might have been interesting had it gone the other way

Murray served at 40% odd -50%odd in three of the sets.

It is extremely difficult to beat the world number one with these stats.

That said he did have plenty of break points and was never broken more than once in a set, so Murray otherwise did pretty well.

match turned on the two brilliant points that Fed played at deuce 6-5 in second set for me.

He lost to a better quality player over 5 sets, it's that simple.

how typical that murray's serve that had been such an asset en route to the final, let him down totally in the final itself.

the thread is about the comparison between his 4 slam final losses

i'm saying the first 3 were excusable in the circumstances

but today when he needed to raise his level at break points for and against he was unable to get it done

really a very disappointing effort

I'm very much a layman with tennis and don't bet on it but if I were Murray I'd think about:

1. More sensible use of challenge system
2. Trying to reduce anxiety and frustration levels on court - he's improving in this aspect but it crept in in set 4 today.
3. Reducing his entourage (probably becomes less for tournaments outside UK anyway)

but today was by far his best performance compared to the previous 3 finals lol

Murray must have saved a lot of break points though

Maybe at 5-6, 30-0 in the 2nd set he was complacent rather than nervous (already thinking about the tie break) ?

murray saved loads

i wonder if he'd gone on to win, judo would have said fed threw it away by not converting

Completely agree with the OP. Break points in the 2nd missed then couldn't get to the Tie break even though he was 30 love up.  Fed played well at 30 all because he realised it was important but it shouldn't have got to 30 all.  So many games when to deuce when Murray was 40 love or 40 15 up; that was all because of Murray. He threw this match away.

The mark of a truly great player is that they can produce their most brilliant shots on the most crucial points. No matter how you cut it, Murray isn't able to do that. And, if he wants to win a slam in this era, he's going to have to change not. (Which is highly unlikely.)

Having said that, I thought he battled pretty well today. He could easily have capitulated. As it was he was still fighting and saving break points. And he did force Fed to serve it out. He only really started to lose heart in that fourth set (when he started stumbling around just prior to playing the service game he was broken on).

Murray didn't capitulate. He just isn't a true great, and lacks that vital ingredient that allows him to stay ahead of an outstanding player like the Fed. Sad, and something he'll keep trying to work on, but doesn't make him worthy of the vitriol he's getting here. I bet most of you fluff your bets on a pretty consistent basis. How many of you always make the best decisions under pressure?

The OP is wrong,easily his best slam effort,the margins between success and failure are really small, Federer knows he was in a hell of a match,best man won on the day,before this tournament I doubted he would win a slam now I think he might just do it. There can only be one winner so congtatulations to Federer the greatest of all time and as for Andy get pissed,take a few days of and start thinking about Flushing Meadow your best surface.

Murray lacked a killer instinct at key points in the match today.In so many games when he looked like making a breakthrough, he seemed to relax and let Fed get back in. Murray has the ability but as so often in the past his psychological failings let him down.

He appears as a born loser that can only thrive in the smallest of puddles;  a total waste of public support.

So presumably you think everybody outside the top three is a born loser that can only thrive in the smallest of puddles?   Geez.  You're a hard mark, pal...

Well on saturday i said on another thread.

If Murray upped his game 50% from the semi final he would have a chance - IMO he played far better in the final but....

I feared his serve would struggle against a much better returner

3rd set only 49% 1st serves

4th set even worse

The Murray serve wilted under pressure as i suspected

This was his best chance to win a major as he only had to play 1 of the other top 3, but he couldn't get over the line.

precisely why I think this is his worst defeat because it was BY FAR his best chance

in the others he had little or no chance AT ALL and can easily be forgiven especially the first against Fed and the one against Djoko who subsequently went unbeaten for months (in the other vs Fed he just had a bad day)

But here he was on the verge of victory, and I truly believe he would have won the match for sure had he taken the second set, after all the training, planning, dreaming and preparation but yet incapable of taking a BP when he needed or serving out to get to the breaker. It is the psychological inability to recognise that in those moments "this is the match right here, right now" and to raise his level even a few percentage points to ensure he at least got into the breaker that marks this match down as a fail. In the others he never stood a chance and here he had a golden one

extremely disappointed in him but then this is not the first time I have been disappointed having followed him closely since he was 17 years old and seen nearly every match, bar a couple, he has played

The logic behind this thread seems to be

- the closer Murray gets in a final to winning it, the worse his performance is

clearly you don't get logic argument

losing when you never had a chance is no disgrace or disappointment

but chucking it away when you have victory in the palm of your hand is very hard to take

and make no mistake he would have lifted the trophy if he won the second set

he didn't have victory in the palm of his hand ffs

he simply couldn't convert bp when a set up

Murray was the better player for a set and a half. I tend to agree he would of won if he had gone 2-0 up.

However as Fed put him under more and more pressure to hold his serve, it let him down missing far too many 1st serves which mostly hit the net 3quarters to half way up.

but he could have held serve and then won a tie break - just raising his level, serving huge for a few minutes (as he did against Ferrer including 3 aces in one game) would have seen him win the match (well there would have been some chance of Fed winning 3 sets but the pressure would have been immense)

victory was right there but then he gets broken at 5-6 and the match was over. I in fact posted "GSM Federer" as soon as he won the second set on the main discussion - that's how important that set was and the fact he served 49 and 46% in the next 2 sets showed how big that was

massive disappointment

and yes "he simply couldn't convert" is what I am talking about - that is why it is disappointing. He needs to do that when the crucial moment comes

he didn't hold serve cos fed played unbelievable

that was all

he's regarded by some as the greatest for a reason

This is now entering the realm of fantasy.

As stated correctly above, he never had the second set in the palm of his hand.
And to be stating categorically what would have happened afterwards if he'd won set 2 is bizarre.

He got considerably closer to winning a final today than in the previous attempts, which is progress, which he alluded to himself.
On that basis, it's fact not opinion that it was by far the best effort of the four finals he has been in

fed couldn't convert plenty of bp chances either

are you saying murray needs to convert more because he's not as good

if he slammed down two aces at 30-0 fed could have been the second coming but would still have had to play a breaker

it was focus or being lacksadaisical or something that meant he didn't get it done, nothing to do with Fed at all

at least as i see it - when you are serving it is in your hands and it was murrays phuck up to get broken from 30-0

baghdatis was 1 set all and a break up and failed to beat murray
benny was 2 sets up on federer

did they both throw the match away with victory in the palm of their hand?

so because he didn't slam down 2 aces against federer to only force a breaker, he threw it away

When facing breakpoints, did Murray choke a single one of them as badly as federer's breakpoint choke in the first game.
No.

It's not necessarily 'in your hands if you're serving'. If it was, tennis would be a very simple game, and many players would get to the final without having been broken once in previous matches.  The fact is, if somebody is good enough to put in some great returns (and Fed most emphatically is), then that can take the game away from the server.  Fed played his very best shots when he had to.  And Fed's very best is too good for, at the absolute most, two other people in the world.

he did throw it away, simple as that, he was on top at 30-0 in that game and minutes later the match was as good as over and I said GSM Federer at that point. No matter how good the opponent, to become a champion, at that stage the player needs to say "I am gonna do this, this is too important"

but Murray was a flake, got broke and the rest is history - and I maintain this was a much worse defeat than all the others because he was that close

ho hum

Ge was up against Fed in God Mode.

Nobody can beat Fed when he plays like this.  He did the same thing to Novak in the SF.  Nadal would have been whining to the umpire about Federer farting too loudly.

yes they can and Murray could have won today

In fact I am certain he would have lifted the trophy if he won that second set - Fed did nothing special to win that set apart from the point at 5-6 30-30 which was a great rally... but Murray could still have boomed down three aces and won that game and there would have been nothing Fed could have done

Djokovic has beaten Fed, Del Potro came from a set and a break down to beat Fed

Murray managed to blow it

"Del Potro came from a set and a break down to beat Fed"

But that's the exact mirror image of what happened yesterday.  DP didn't win that set, Fed threw it away from serving for it at - drum roll - 30-0!!  Just like with Murray, you could have said that had Fed won that set like he had even more right to than Murray did his second set yesterday, Fed would have beaten DP for sure.

Still, I do realise exactly what you mean by how close it was at that point.  Given how easily Murray had been holding serve those past few games cf. Fed, I was fully expecting him not only to take things to the TB but also to be hot favourite in the TB just by dint of having dropped a lot fewer points on serve all set than Fed had.

Meanwhile perhaps you could let us all know how much you lost because of Murray's missed 2nd set opportunities? lol

And finally:  I'm really surprised that nobody on this thread has yet mentioned the name of RODDICK.  Isn't this second-set business eerily close to what happened three Wimbledon finals ago, when A-Rod had taken the first set and well and truly had the second set by the throad, 6-2 up in the TB - and you all remember what happened.

That's the very first thing I thought of the moment Murray lost that second set.  Who here doubts that Roddick would have won that year if he'd just taken that TB?

* throat

Well it's just a shame Roddick had such a weak serve then... 

Dont forget Andy met the greatest of all time and give him credit to make the final, no britt hasnt that for so many years. He deserves some respect for that only, all Murray haters.

He has earned more money today than you ever will in your pathetic lifes.