Andy Murray continued to dominate his first-week field at the Australian Open with a commanding 6-1, 6-1, 6-2 victory over No. 32 seed Guillermo Garcia-Lopez on Saturday.
Murray blasted past the one-dimensional Spaniard in one hour and 22 minutes, advancing to the round of 16 after dropping just 17 games and having not yet lost a set.
Sure, Karol Beck and Ilya Marchenko did not pose the same threat that someone like Gilles Simon did to Roger Federer, but take nothing away from Murray’s early form.
If people want to talk about how well Rafael Nadal played against Ryan Sweeting and how easy Novak Djokovic made it look against Marcel Granollers and, in the end, Ivan Dodig, then by the same logic we have to appreciate how good Murray has been.
Garcia-Lopez has been Murray’s toughest test to date, but take the word ‘test’ for what it is. Garcia-Lopez came in with an awful gameplan which was made worse only by his failure to adapt to the obvious lack of success he was having.
He consistently served to Murray’s backhand and he failed to hold serve throughout the first two sets. Everyone knows Murray is one of the best first-serve returners in the game today, and his backhand remains his strongest offensive weapon. He is moving so well, both side to side and front to back, that you’re not going to get many free points without a battle first, and Garcia-Lopez refused to adjust his approach.
Just look at his serve pattern to see for yourself.
Everything is to the right-hander's left. Maybe 83 percent of the serves in the ad court are to the backhand, and you're looking at a similar number in the deuce court. That's ridiculous. I think there are two games here that I was unable to map here, but you can see the trend at least.
As if his first serve wasn’t getting battered enough, Garcia-Lopez lost 19 of 24 points on his second serve, primarily sticking to his plan to attack the backhand wing.
Murray served at 64 percent throughout the match, dropping just eight points on his first serve to really stick Garcia-Lopez behind the eight ball. Add to that just one double fault and 24 winners and the intangibles of court coverage and straight line speed, and Murray looks like the complete hard court package once again.
A big server like Andy Roddick could struggle to blast him of the court while the likes of Milos Raonic and John Isner don’t have the rest of the game to trouble Murray. I guess that’s academic anyway as none of those three are likely to meet the Brit.
Then there’s the footwork, fitness, and movement; there are few players not named Nadal who can move as well as Murray. Guys like Djokovic and Monfils are up there, but they don’t have the stamina that Murray does. While Nadal can run all day, he doesn’t have that explosive speed getting to the net.
I’m not saying that Murray will win the tournament, and I’ll agree that he’s not been tested yet, but Murray is coming into the kind of form that will get him into the business end of the event.
Jurgen Melzer likely awaits in the fourth round with Robin Soderling in the quarters. I expect Murray to handle Melzer in straight sets before beating Soderling in four, regardless of how well he’s been serving
If Murray wants to win the Australian Open, he’ll probably need to beat the fourth, first, and second seeds in consecutive matches. It’s a daunting task, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.
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