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Andy Murray And The Curse Of The Demon
By Scoop Malinowski
It sounds like a Halloween movie marathon film title but unfortunately for Andy Murray, it’s all too true.
A month ago Murray in Beijing had a 5-2 lead and seven match points on Alex “The Demon” de Minaur but failed to score his first ever career win vs the gritty Australian.
Today, ATP no. 40 Murray again earned another commanding lead against his demon, a 5-2, 15-love third set lead vs his demon. However, again Murray failed to finish the job and was defeated 76 46 75. The former world no. 1 twice served for the match and held match point at 5-4 40-30. ATP no. 13 de Minaur won the last five games of the match.
The 36 year old Murray, the 2016 Paris Rolex Masters 1000 champion, is now 0-6 in his career head to head vs the 24 year old antagonist. He has not won a match in Bercy since winning the title seven years ago. The demon has cursed Murray by inflicting four losses this year.
Murray’s first two defeats to de Minaur this year were in Monte Carlo on clay 16 36 and Queens on grass 36 16.
After the letcord winner clinched the match for de Minaur, Murray vented his understandable rage by smashing his head racquet before and after the net handshake.
“It’s frustrating, I’m really not enjoying it just now and how I’m playing,” said Murray after the loss. “The last five-six months haven’t been that enjoyable. What happened today, I don’t remember it happening to me before, it’s not really me.”
de Minaur will advance to the second round vs. Benjamin Bonzi or Dusan Lajovic. Murray’s match record this year is 16-17.
Note: de Minaur is the first player in tennis to win the first six matches versus Murray. Federer, Nadal and Djokovic were unable to do this.
Scoop Malinowski · October 30, 2023 at 2:55 pm
Another heartbreaking loss for Murray. It reminds me of Michael Chang at the end, and all those close losses he let slip away. There’s comes a point that these baseline grinders lose a fraction of something and just can’t finish anymore. Murray is working hard to be elite again but the results are not coming. He may be finished but he refuses to accept it. All those wildcards didn’t really help other than to give him a shortcut to a fraudulent ranking.