Mere semi-final is no cause for fuss

Stewart Fisher

Sports Writer

Saturday 8 September 2012

THE excitement is reaching fever pitch ahead of Andy Murray's US Open semi-final against Tomas Berdych today.

Lendl is as cool as ever in his approach ahead of today's match

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Stewart Fisher

Everywhere, that is, except inside the cranium of Ivan Lendl. "It's a semi-final," he said calmly. "We didn't come here for semi-finals."

The eight-time grand slam winner clearly has high standards, but such comments do not reflect any lack of appreciation for the man on the opposite side of the net to his coaching charge. He knows Berdych's manager, Mirol Cernicek – well, pops into his training base in Prostejov in the Czech Republic from time to time – and chats to Berdych in their native tongue when they meet in the locker room.

The 6ft 5in Berdych certainly commands respect as much for his mighty defeat of Roger Federer in midweek as the four wins from his six meetings with Murray to date. But while the 26-year-old has reached this stage of a Grand Slam only twice previously, Murray has reached the last four in eight of the last 10. "Let him be, let him think it through," Lendl says sagely of the Scot. "He has been there before. He is very comfortable where he is now. I don't sense any anxiety."Such a sentiment chimes in with the Team Murray mantra of this fortnight, about trusting in game experience and the work that has been done. Although most people regard the Olympic tennis tournament as having only quasi-major status, Lendl also feels the importance of Murray winning gold has been understated."I don't think people have seen the full significance of the Olympics, because they are harder to win than the majors," Lendl said. "They may not be as established in the tennis public's mind but I think this will change very quickly now that Andy and Rafa [Nadal] have won the last two. Before, it was a bit different, maybe because the top guys didn't win, but you will get a top guy winning in Rio and [the competition] will be right up there with everything else."To me Andy has already won a big one and the most difficult one. At 21 in Beijing he wasn't ready. He is 25 now, he will be 29 in Rio and he will be 33 wherever the Olympics are after that and unlikely to be among the favourites. So he had two chances of taking the gold and he did it on the first one."Outside of Wimbledon – because he is British – if you gave me a choice that we could win the Olympics, or the French, US or Australian Opens, I would have said the Olympics without thinking."Lendl is the only other man in the history of the sport to have lost his first four major finals and from the start, his relationship with Murray had promise. When they met for the first time in a pizza parlour, the former World No 1 had a blueprint prepared showing how the Scot could beat the top men in tennis. "We spoke about how to play against them, their strengths and weaknesses, things that I could improve against them and just things in general that I could improve that would help me against everybody," said Murray, who will face Novak Djokovic or David Ferrer should he make the final."We spoke at length about that stuff and that is really why I hired him. He struggled against his rivals like [Jimmy] Connors and [John] McEnroe the first few times he played against them and managed to turn it around by doing specific drills. I have pretty much stuck to those ideas."One of the catalysts for the appointment of Lendl came when Murray lost at the semi-final stage here last year to Nadal in four sets. "It wasn't as tough as the Australian Open final, the Wimbledon final, but it was a tough loss – any one you have in a grand slam is," Murray said.He feels he has played better this year. He has struggled at times, however, and Murray knows he must be mentally present for every point against the 2010 Wimbledon runner-up. "When he's on his game, he's had good success," Murray said. "But he can be up and down sometimes and you need to capitalise on those moments when he's not playing so well and maybe making a few mistakes."The US Open is as much about music, celebrities and razzmatazz as it is about tennis. The sport is a hot ticket these days and Murray has been watched by the likes of James Corden, Kevin Spacey, Amir Khan and Pippa Middleton, with more big names set to rock up as the tournament reaches its conclusion. Murray will try to switch off from as much of that as possible, even declining the chance to select three songs to be played at the change of ends on Ashe. "It's actually better if they're playing songs you don't like because then you don't focus on it that much," he said, planningto tune out all outside influences this afternoon and give Berdych his undivided attention.

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Mere semi-final is no cause for fuss

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