As Roger Federer romped past his quarter-final opponent Milos Raonic on Wednesday afternoon he looked at times like a man capable of winning Wimbledon on one leg. Sadly, for Andy Murray the opposite appears to be the case. Afflicted by a longstanding hip injury, Murray lost his quarter-final in five increasingly one-sided, and one-legged, sets against the world No28 Sam Querrey, only the second time in eight years Murray has exited Wimbledon before the semi-final stage.
Murray had been first on Centre Court at lunchtime, the world No1 and reigning champion pitched against a game, likeable big-serving American who had never been past this stage in 42 previous grand slam tournaments. The first set was won by Murray in a rush, bringing a familiar cooing sense of wellbeing around those gunmetal stands, the status quo purringly maintained.
Two hours later as Murray winced and shuddered and wooden-legged his way through a desolate final set, displaying all the loose-limbed mobility of a geriatric Dalek with a gin habit, Centre Court was gripped with a strange confusion of noises, sighs and groans of agonised disbelief at a defeat that came suddenly and out of nowhere. Outside in the hills of SW19 cats barked, horses howled at the sun, a shower of frogs coated the golf course across the road. On court Murray, beaten just twice here since 2012, simply fell apart, unable to respond to Querrey’s fine, assertive hitting.
For British tennis fans attention will now turn to Johanna Konta who plays her semi-final against Venus Williams on Thursday afternoon. A late-bloomer at this level, Konta is entering some pretty thin air here, a second career grand slam semi-final, with a relatively clear run at actually winning the thing. Williams is a hall-of-fame champion in her own right. But Konta is 11 years younger and has the better of their head-to-head record.
Either way it will be Konta’s lot now to bear the full force of Wimbledon’s bunting-strewn lust for glory on another bravura final weekend. It is at the very least something different. Seven times in the last eight years the second Friday of Wimbledon has been an all-out Murray gig, with TV schedules cleared and the hill at the back of No1 Court loaded with flag-wavers, jug-quaffers, kibitzers, day-trippers, ruddy-faced once-a-year tennis ultras.
It still seemed likely Murray would be joining them again as he walked on court at lunchtime. Although in retrospect to this point he had barely played a serious opponent at these championships. In fact Murray had played four notably unserious opponents, a roll-call of clown prince types from the goofy Alexander Bublik to Benoît Paire, a brooding Gallic showman who seems, even in moments of high tension, to be on the verge of producing a string of coloured handkerchiefs from the stem of his racket or sawing a ballboy in half during a change of ends.
Querrey had looked a decent match-up too, a big server whose game is in theory perfectly tailored for Murray’s high-grade returns. Resistance against the power players is the base element from which Murray’s career has been chiselled. He is a counter-puncher, all wry, deadpan delivery both on and off court. Even in his post-match press conference here Murray could not help twice interjecting with the words “male player” as an American journalist delivered a burblingly delighted speech-cum-question about Querrey’s status as “the first American player” to reach a Wimbledon semi-final in eight years.
On court Murray had set off like a train, perhaps gambling on the quick kill. The first set was taken in half an hour as the crowd basked in the returning afternoon sun, applauding Querrey now and then with the slightly cloying magnanimity of a crowd that already knows where this one is heading. Murray was hitting well off both wings, judging the speed and angle of his shots to a fine-point perfection. One running front-on dink-volley lob was plonked over Querrey’s head like a man tossing a pancake after a few glasses of left-over kitchen Chardonnay.
At which point the air simply disappeared from his game. The shift came with a horrible too-clever-by-half drop-shot from the back of the court, often a sign of something amiss for Murray. Querrey broke serve immediately. Murray fought back to take the third set in a tie break, then abruptly fell apart, the sheer effort of keeping himself upright taking its toll.
By the end, as Querrey steamed through the final two sets, Murray was barely half a tennis player, unable to form the basic shapes to hit shots, and instead swinging wildly from the hip like a wounded gunslinger in a black and white Western. It was, for all the home crowd disappointment, the most heroically unbowed of defeats, a serial champion determined to push through the pain right to the end.
As ever in defeat it will be tempting to wonder how much more a hobbling 30-year-old ex-champ has to give. How feasible is it Murray should expect to join Federer in extreme elite longevity? The Swiss, who will now be a powerful favourite to win Wimbledon, is a prodigious physical specimen, all pure, frictionless athletic grace. Murray by contrast is the most high maintenance of athletes, borne aloft on a supporting cast of fitness trainers, nutritionists, yoga-wanglers, high end coaches. His triumphs have been tribute above all to his own intelligence and sheer hard work. It is a sustained success that looked all the more admirable in painful defeat here.
