Andy Murray continued his fine 2015 form and kicked off his grass court season in the best of fashion with a stunning victory at the Queen's club. Having had to finish yesterday's semi-final against Viktor Troicki, in which he won in straight sets, Murray then returned in the afternoon to dismantle the big-serving Kevin Anderson. It was his fourth AEGON Championship title and he will head into Wimbledon at the end of the month on a high.
Andy Murray has laid yet another ghost to rest, and for once it isn't the ghost of Fred Perry - its an even older one! Going back to 1909. This was the last time a British player had won the title at queens club 4 times, this was the record Murray was going for. There are some very strange parallels between Andy Murray and Major Ritchie, Murray has now laid both of the Ritchie ghosts to rest (there's still a couple of Fred Perry ones to go, but he's working on that). Ritchie was also the last Brit to win an Olympic gold medal in singles (well, Murray laid that one to bed in 2012). Murray was going to have to play 2 matches in a day if he was to win the AEGON Championship at Queens for a 4th time (and incidentally, as this author pointed out in another article, Murray likes to win this trophy in a year that is an odd number), just like he had done in Munich.
So, today Murray had to finish his match against Viktor Troicki, we'd left the semi final poised at 3-3, with Murray having a break point on Saturday, when Troicki fell and sustained an injury to his shoulder (at first it was thought it could be a dislocation, but it seems that he just jarred it, the fall looked bad at the time), and then the rain intervened, so no more play was possible on saturday. Murray came out flying and managed to get the break on his second break point to be up 4-3, 2 games later the set was his. In the 2nd set Troicki seemed to be feeling better and broke Murray to take a 2-4 lead. Murray was not having any of that though and broke straight back again, this set inevitably landed in a tiebreak. After a slow start in which Murray dropped the first point and Troicki raced ahead, Murray soon pulled it back and got the win with the tiebreak ending 7-4. This set up a final with Kevin Anderson who played his semi final on the saturday. (Seemed like a whole day away, oh wait!).
Roll forward to just after 2:30pm BST and out come Kevin Anderson, who had an amazing run here to reach the final, knocking out Lleyton Hewitt (after being match point down), Stan Wawrinka to name just a couple of players, to face Murray, top seed and favourite - even though he had not had as much rest as Anderson. Something Anderson had been doing well here was serving Aces. His tournament record stood around 95 before he faced Murray - he was soon upto 100, but Murray was restricting the actual number of Aces, due to his superb defending. Murray was really enjoying his tennis and at times it appeared he was just toying with Anderson, as he fired lobs, drop shots, cross court running shots (his whole arsenal in fact) and was winning the points. Murray broke Anderson serve quickly in the first set and took this 6-3, at the start of the second both were holding serve and fairly comfortably, when Murray mananged to pounce again on the Anderson serve to break for the second time of the match - it was all he needed, he sealed the win with a roar and an excellent cross court shot. This win puts Murray in the company of those that have now won the tournament 4 times - and he is the only active player to do so.
The way Murray was playing was astonishing and he admitted that he felt he was playing better tennis than in 2013, whilst admitting that it was still very difficult to win these tournaments. He will now take time out from playing, knowing Murray probably only a couple of days, before hitting the practice courts at SW19. Half way to the double.