Australian Open

This blog maybe a couple of hours early but Andrew Murray plays Djokovic in the first of the grand slams this year in Melbourne. While the book makers do not have the Scot as the favourite and Djokovic is ranked higher than him in the world, I'm very confident Murray could make it back to back slams.

Murray is a totally different player to the player that made it to the same final two years ago. He has broken that duck of grand slams when he won in New York last year and is a much more confident player. Just taking these last two weeks in particular he has played so much more aggressive tennis. When Murray was making his mark in the tennis world and climbing the ladder he was known as a player very tough to beat. He would hang in points, play it safe and wait for his opponent to make a mistake. Just by watching his latest battle with Federer you can see the change in his game he is much more prepared to attack opponents. He goes looking to hit that winner and take the upper hand in a rally.

Of course this all steams from winning his first slam last year, accomplishing his main goal of winning a grand slam. It probably felt like a the whole world had been lifted of his shoulders freeing him up to play more confident, free aggressive tennis. I take you back to the slam before that where he narrowly lost to Federer in the final again and it seamed as if his whole world had collapsed. At this point in his career loosing his third slam final his career faced a cross road he could continue to battle but always be the bridesmaid to players like Djokovic and Federer, or he could put everything together by taking the battle to them rather than being dictated to. He did this first by returning to Wimbledon in the Olympics just a few weeks after all the heart ache and winning the Olympic gold. Then winning his first slam just the very next slam in flushing meadows.

Since all this while not being ranked number 1 in the world I would argue Murray has been playing the best tennis in the world. For the first time in a slam final Djokovic is going to have to react to Murray rather than dictating the flow. This bows well for Murray as he looks to win back to back grand slams. Good luck Andy.