TENNIS:REVENGE IS not just sweet, it is the adrenaline of sport and Andy Murray is as cursed with the juice of getting square as any athlete. Tonight in New York he faces down Donald Young, the 22-year-old American lefty who made a fool of him in Indian Wells this year and stands between the Scot and the quarter-finals of the US Open.
The challenge for Murray is to contain his emotions in what will surely be an electric atmosphere, because losing for a second time to a player who only now is fulfilling his potential after years of being thrown into tournaments he was not ready for would be an even more crushing experience than the first one.
In March Murray was still traumatised by losing to Novak Djokovic in the final of the Australian Open in January. Here there is no such excuse. Murray is coming off an injury retirement win against the Serb in Cincinnati and on Sunday produced some astonishing tennis to beat another left-hander, Feliciano Lopez.
Murray looks to be in the right frame of mind at the right time. If he beats Young, Murray plays either Gilles Simon or John Isner. Beyond that is the semi-final, where almost certainly Rafael Nadal will be waiting, recovered from his public cramping on Sunday but vulnerable and yet to reach his best.
Murray thinks Young, whose talent he admires, has suffered from being exposed to the senior game too soon. “If you think it’s good for someone to be playing senior events when they’re 15 or 16 years old, (youre) wrong,” he said last night. “The game now – and I guess when he was that age – has become really physical. If you’re (getting into) tournaments by taking wild cards left, right and centre rather than by right, that’s the wrong way to go about it.”
Young is one of four Americans who have reached the fourth round – with Mardy Fish, Andy Roddick and Isner – their best representation at Flushing Meadows since 2003, and he is the one carrying most hope for the future.
Only now is the former world junior number one, 2005 Australian junior title holder and 2007 junior Wimbledon champion starting to blossom. “I think my light is coming on,” he said. “I mean, hopefully it is. I don’t have a real reason.”
GuardianService
