It takes guts to attack the net 25 times against a man with as formidable a service return as Andy Murray, and it takes a pretty skilled volleyer to win 19 of those approaches. Matthew Ebden, the 23-year-old Aussie who was born in South Africa, has guts. He also has skill. What he doesn't have—and this can really hurt a guy who likes to volley—is much of a second serve. Or a good plan to back up that so-so second delivery.
That was just about the entire story of the mismatch between these two Shanghai quarterfinalists. Murray is the hottest player on the tour, hands down. Edben was the hottest player in Shanghai, hands down. Ranked No. 124, Edben qualified for this penultimate ATP Masters event and then pulled off an impressive string of upsets, culminating with his stunner over No. 8 seed Gilles Simon in the third round. Ebden had a lot to be proud of, and a lot to be nervous about, as he faced Murray, a man who makes a hobby out of picking apart opponents who like to play with risk.
The funny thing about nerves is that you never know when they'll kick in. In Ebden's case, he was fine, giving as good as he got, up to 3-all in the first set. Then the wheels fell off. A break put Murray up 5-3, and Ebden was serving again. A hold and—who knows?—maybe Edben is right back in it. But Ebden's second serve let him down when he served to stay in the set. A double-fault at 15-all really hurt his cause, a nervously overhit forehand error put him in a big hole and, after he saved one break point with a good first serve to Murray's body, a double-fault at 30-40 sealed his fate.
Before long, Murray had three straight breaks and a six-game run to put him up 6-3, 3-0, with Ebden in utter disarray. But to his credit, Ebden regained his composure and held for 1-3. In the next game, Murray fell behind 0-30. Edben had won seven of the last nine points, and appeared to have a glimmer of hope. Could Ebden worm his way back into it?
Nah. Murray finished off a rally with a slick backhand winner and forced a passing shot error to get back to 30-all, and he won next two points to hold for 4-1. That, for all practical purposes, ended the threat to the No. 2 seed's attempt to win his third consecutive ATP event. (Murray won 6-3, 6-2.)
Edben's serving woes were not confined to those five double faults. His main problem in the match was a very low conversion rate on his second serve—an unacceptable shortcoming in today's game. Ebden won just 32 percent of his second-serve points, while Murray converted 78 percent, not least because he has a reliable second serve while Ebden, at least on this day, did not.
Still. . . Ebden demonstrated how valuable a good approach-and-volley based game can be these days, when everyone is camped at the baseline, taking huge cuts. Sure, Murray won eight of nine net-approach points. But that's partly because he played his approach game so safely. Edben was bolder, so his success rate was less impressive than Murray's, but the number of his approaches was impressive. He was 19 for 25; give him the second serve of Roger Federer or Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and you'd be seeing this kid in a lot more Masters Series quarterfinals.
—Pete Bodo