Fantastic Murray

If Murray does win people will say it's because there's no Nadal and Federer's too old to carry the form he once did.

Tennis. We can seriously get excited about Andy Murray these days. His backhand is superb and I love the way he can pull the forehand across his own body and down the line to a right handed opponents forehand side.

He played that shot amazingly last night and to be honest, he is a joy to watch.

That said, tennis can only be good if there are other players around to compete with, and as Andy has found out, there is plenty of opposition out there, and that is why we love tennis-

Jonty. I laugh when I read that rotla and tenez will stop watching tennis because it is in such a bad shape these days
At least they are less serious, and humorous when they are NOT trying to be PMSL

Certainly am excited Maksi.

Still miss Rafa and sad Roger went out, but at least I can now get fully behind Andy without having my loyalties split!

Agreed Tennis. How anybody can't enjoy the play provided by 2 legends is beyond me.
Andy has 1 obstacle standing in his way for a while now, and it will be very interesting to see if Delpo, Berdych, Raonic, Ferrer can get in amongst it and maybe win a Slam. Must admit though, they don't look or sound like Slam winners to me but surely Andy and Djokovic can't win the lot from now on, for the time being anyway?

Good to have you back Tennis, have you been anywhere nice?

Tennisfan, andy had really improved the self talk until this slam and it seems to have crept back in I'm afraid. I don't see any positive that comes from it, there's a big difference in the effect of calling yourself stupid etc and saying 'I can do better than this' etc

I know I managed to real change that side of my game some years back through a great tennis coach in France who is also a hypno therapist and we did specific drills to address focus after missing a point.

Changed my game completely.

Not meant to be criticism of andy just an observation that he did it a lot last night and I think that then affects his focus and he then has a propensity to let things slip that shouldn't.

Hope that makes sense.

Maksi, didn't go away but wanted a rest from all the Rafa bashing that was going on - can't be doing with all that hatred - plus the US tournaments are not great for me due to the time differences so I was only getting to see highlights so difficult to get into them.

But now Andy is on the verge (fingers crossed) I wanted to come back and hopefully celebrate with like minded lovers of tennis :hug:

Polb, technically it shod have been a let but the umpire used good judgement to give point to andy but andy got drawn into conversation with Berdych.

Credit to umpire fit being human enough to let playrs sort it out themselves and credit to Murat for saying to Berdych well if yore 100% sure etc but Berdych let himself down. No way he would have got that ball, he should have just held his hands up to that.

Lesson from this is that murray should use less slippery hair gel.

Thanks Jonty. Bit disappointing to hear that about the negative talk. I was going by what I saw at Wimbledon and Olympics where he was (to me anyway) using the self talk to push on. Be a shame if he reverted to negativity, but hopefully (without having seen the match) it was probably more out of frustration at the conditions.

Conditions were awful. Wind stronger at one end than other but it swirls as well so it's not just as simple as hitting it harder from one end etc, it's like driving in really heavy traffic leaves you muchore mentally drained than an open road drive do credit to both players for being able to play at all and not complain about it.

Im sure you're right, big frustration from andy re the conditions but I genuinely believe some work on how he articulates/uses that frustration could help his game.

Having said that, if he mutters all the way through final and wins it, I won't be complaining!

Please excuse iPhone typos!