MELBOURNE—Was Andy Murray annoyed? Was he seething? Was he scared? It would have been hard to blame him if it was the latter. You might have been frightened, too, if you looked up to your player’s box and, where you once saw your mother, you locked eyes with a shaven-headed Ivan Lendl.
Whatever the reason, Murray was a different man inside Hisense Arena today. When he went down an early break to Ryan Harrison, we waited for the muttering and the headshaking to begin. When he went down a second break, we waited for the muttering, the leg grabbing, and the rectangular-lipped rage to begin. Both times we waited in vain. Many of us wondered, after his experience with Brad Gilbert a few years ago, whether Murray could deal with a strong-willed coach. If a single afternoon can be taken as any indication, it seems that he can. One match in, and a change has already been introduced. It worked so well, in fact, that at times it was easy to believe Murray had been replaced by his secret, quiet, twin brother. Who was this Masked Muzz? I almost found myself missing the muttering.
Murray said afterward that Lendl was pleased with how controlled and calm he remained through the rough early going of his eventual 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 win. But while the man universally described as a “dour Czech” looked suitably intimidating in the stands, he was apparently understanding of Murray’s slow start.
“He knows what it’s like to play your first round in a Grand Slam,” Murray said of Lendl. “He’s been there. It’s not like he’s going to say, ‘What the hell were you doing out there?’”
What Murray did out there was what he’s always done: grind and move and counterpunch and defend and basically set up a fortress at the baseline. Gone were the bigger forehand and more aggressive mindset that he had shown in the later rounds in Brisbane. Gone were the stepped-up attempts at positive emotion. This was a feeling-out match. Not only was it the opening round of a Slam with a new coach, it was a hot and sticky day when the ball was bouncing higher than it had been in a week’s worth of practice. Plus, Murray said that not only had he never played Harrison, he had never hit with him. Put all of that together and it was no time to experiment or get out of his comfort zone.
Credit Harrison for making it hard for Murray to find that zone. The American came out firing. His down-the-line backhand in particular looked improved from last season; through the first set, he popped it closer to the sidelines, with more velocity, than he has in the past. It’s a shot that hurt him last season—Harrison can leave it hanging too near the middle of the court—and which could make a big difference for him in 2012.
“I’ve gotten it to the point where I can pull the trigger with it,” Harrison said of his backhand. “But it’s got to be consistent where I can make it time and again on big points and trust myself to go after it.”
For now, Harrison remains a notch below the elite players in terms of consistency, especially on the backhand side, and the errors slowly began to come over the last three sets.
“His backhand crosscourt was a little more effective,” Harrison said. “Whenever we got in a backhand crosscourt rally, I was the one having to force myself out of that rally.”
Match one in the Ivan Lendl era is in the books for Andy Murray. There were no tactical changes to be seen, but if Murray can stay, as he said, “controlled,” that will be a bigger improvement than anything he could do with his strokes. It worked today: Even in the first set, when he went down two breaks and his shots lacked conviction, Murray kept his cool and got one break back. While he didn’t win that set, he generated some positive, rather than the customary negative, energy going into the next one. Lendl was a master of playing to his own tempo—slowing it down when he was losing, speeding it up when he was winning—and Murray stayed patient when he was down, rather than pulling the trigger and releasing his emotions.
I had thought when this partnership was announced that Murray would want to play well for Lendl, to justify the legend’s belief in him. It sounded like that was the case today. Murray said he was happy to get a win in his first match with Lendl, but that he was disappointed at his slow start—more disappointed, he implied, than he would have been for himself alone.
Match 2 in the Lendl era is next. Murray says he hopes to “play better for him." If he doesn't, he may not want to look up into the stands at all.