Since the beginning of the season, Murray has been a continuous failure and has not won any titles. This has left fans forgetting the image of a tennis player who rose strongly to be able to overthrow Novak Djokovic in 2016.
Last month, the world No. 1 tennis player continued to make many people question his form when he suffered a 0-2 defeat to Fabio fognini - the world's 13th-ranked tennis player right in the opening match of Rome Masters. Remember, Rome Master is a tournament in which he is the defending champion and also a premise for Roland Garros.
Technical problems
It is undeniable that Murray is one of the best players in tennis with good coverage and fast movement. However, in the recent match against fognini, fans could not see that.
He seemed to stand still watching fognini throw the ball all over the pitch and continuously score points with small dumping. refusing to move and always being helpless and weak in every phase of the ball, Murray becomes like a lifeless machine on the field.
The main reason is not the technique but the psychology of Murray. It seems that he is always in a state of fatigue, not confident in himself and does not find the motivation to compete because in reality, every step of a tennis player is closely related to the thoughts in his head.
Murray's decline was also evident in his famous right-handed shots, especially in the humiliating loss to Berard Coric - a tennis player who was not in the top 500 ATP in the third round of Madrid Masters. Unable to maintain a dangerous hand shot and even handing the ball over, Murray could not maintain sharpness. The proof is that the English tennis player's serve rate has only reached 79% this year, much lower than the 85% in 2016.
Decreased physical strength
Perhaps the campaign to conquer the highest title in men's tennis has exhausted Murray physically. Along with that, the Scotsman also spent too much time on high-intensity training even as the 2016 season ended to prepare for the 2017 Australian Open - a tournament in which he had finished second five times. Without a reasonable break, Murray will find it difficult to recover his fitness in time to maintain his high form.
Having to practice and compete in the hot weather continuously is also the reason why Murray's physical strength is exhausted. The problem started to arise when the world No. 1 was "climated" around February, followed by an elbow injury in March and a persistent flu match that prevented Murray from being in the best physical condition.
These problems may be temporary, but for a tennis player who is "overwhelmed" by psychology during competition, seemingly small things can also have a negative impact on his competition results.
Is there a problem off the pitch?
In addition to direct problems on the field, peripheral problems such as the coaching incident are also factors that prevented Murray from getting good results in nearly the first half of the 2017 season. If you follow Murray regularly, you can see that every time he is at his peak, at his best, Murray is himself. For example, in 2008, Murray was already listed in the Big 4 but his performance could not be worse.
This problem may be partly due to disagreements between him and the coaching staff. According to various sources, Murray rarely worked directly with coach Ivan Lendl - who contributed greatly to helping him win Wimbledon and overthrow Djokovic in 2016. Even the press rarely recorded the image of the Scottish tennis coach and student accompanying each other.
It is known that the rift between him and BHL comes from many factors, culminating in the dissatisfaction with the intensity of professional training that legend Ivan Lendl gave Murray throughout December 2016.
Not only is Jamie Delgado a coach on a hard court and often accompanies Murray in every match to help reassure Murray, but he has also failed to fulfill his responsibility as the world No. 1 is still mentally unstable and often shouts excessively throughout the matches.
Which way for Murray?
Roland Garros is approaching, everyone understands how important this tournament is to every tennis player, especially for Murray - who has never enjoyed the joy of victory here. Coach Lendl will be in Paris this weekend and the first thing they will do is sit back and discuss the problems that Murray is facing and find a way to fix them. But anyway, Murray will have to work much harder as Nadal is "reviving" strongly and is always the most formidable opponent on clay.
Murray believes that no one can affect his first Roland Garros trophy in his career and he is always comfortable with his current position. Perhaps, not being a title contender would be the driving force for Murray to be the strongest.
