H_B

We are probably talking never.

I agree that people dismiss Henman's achievements too easily, but I just see so much more in Murray's game than Henman's. Even against World Class ground games like Gonzalez he looks comfortable. The mechanics of his serve are actually quite good I think. I agree with Petchey that when his strength improves so will his serve. It clearly needs to, but for a coach I would reckon that would be the easiest thing to fix. I would also have said that Henman's best surface was indoors, though that is perhaps debateable. Certainly his biggest title win was indoors in Paris. Time will tell,but I have been pleasantly surprised with his improvement in the last 8 weeks. Can anyone remember the last time he pulled up with an injury or hobbled abuot on court for example? I assume Gilbert has told him he will get a beating if he starts any of that nonsense.

Gilbert has already said that as soon as the hard court season is finished Murray is going to understand what is meant about fitness. I am willing to bet Murray as a physical specimin will look night and day even by the Aussie Open next year. I think if you had to ask everyone in the top 100 who were the 5 guys they least wanted to play just now, Murray would be one of them in a large numebr of cases. I think Nadal is awesome. If you look at the Grand Slam and Masters Series results of him and Federer, they are incomparable to the rest of the tour.

I dont know. I thought that up until the hard court season and Gilbert took over, but now I'm not so sure. He is a better player than Henman was at 19 obviously and his rate of progress has been incredible. I think in 1 or 2 years he will be at a better level than Tim was at his peak. I think only Federer and Nadal are comfortably better at this point in time. The Davydenkos and Roddicks are 50/50 matches. He'll win some and lose some, until next year when he will start winning far more than he loses. Top 4 in the world by US Open next time round for me.

Thats a good call. The overall standard is much lower now than it was then, though to balance that Federer is much better than anything we have seen before.

Which he is Note who is actually paying for the coach that has made such a difference to him - British tennis!

Petchey explained that the other day. Murray uses a really top heavy racquet, so it is difficult for him to stretch up for the ball, particularly as the match goes on and he gets more tired. Your venom poiint just isnt true. He can serve at over 130 mph and his shots go through the court well, again the flip side to his heavy bat. When he gets bigger and stronger his serve will improve in consistency.

Except he didn't. He hit the ball without looking in that direction and was just unfortunate that the ball girl had moved across the court at that point, where he wasnt expecting her to be.

Good post. The only people who think Henman hasn't achieved much are idiot Britons who think tennis only lasts for 2 weeks a year on grass. If Murray has as good a career as Henman he will have done very well.

I think he has a great chance on grass against anyone apart from Fed. He has such a perfect game for it.

Exactly - well put. I think the several hundreds of thousands of pounds the LTA has spent on his development at the Casal-Sanchez tennis centre might have helped him along the way a bit too That money is almost exclusively generated from Wimbledon. Note that this is LTA money and not SLTA money. He also got a wild card last year to Queens and Wimbers when his world ranking was in the 300s. Would he have qualified for these two tournaments otherwise? Very difficult, especially considering his physical state. They also helped fund his coaching with Mark Petchey. He has achieved a lot on his own, but British tennis has helped him along the way greatly.

But that isnt the issue. The problem is that in Scotland there are people tuning in to see Murray with ears pressed up to the speakers of the TV, just salivating for the first time the commentator mentions he is British then filling in a scorecard to make sure he is called Scottish more than British. The only issue Murray ever had with this was when the ignorant Americans called him English, which he clearly is not. If he is called British for the rest of the tournament I have no problem with that, as he is. Scotland are in tennis terms not an independant federation. I think the BBC are for once more than fair with their "Scottishising" of Murray.

You cant compare clay and grass court tennis. Its like two different sports. I'd pick Nadal to beat Federer every day of the week on a clay court, but Id give you 100/1 that he beats him at Wimbledon. Murray has an outside shot of the final. He has no chance whatsoever of beating Federer on grass at this stage of his career and probably knows this. Played very well against Roddick, but Roddick really needs to go away and have a major rethink. Outside the top 10 in the world now and can only see things getting worse for him. I also agree with Sam that Murray is a Brit at Wimbledon. That is the country he represents, as you will see if you look on the Wimbledon site and see Murray (GBR). I think the commentators are very fair with the amount of times they mention he is a Scot. I cant believe how precious people get about that to be honest.

The editor has promised to start moderating the site now. Though to his credit Murray has apparently said he is happy to have comments positive and negative, as long as they dont overstep the mark, like the above.

Match was over in the first game of the third set when he asked for the trainer. In fact it was probably over after the end of the second set. I knew when it had taken them 2 hours to play 2 sets physically he would crumble later on. Dont know why he didnt retire earlier - was pointless playing that last set.

Murray's fitness is becoming embarrassing now. I said to the guy next to me after the tie break that he would retire in the fourth with an injury. Then 30 seconds later I saw he had called for the trainer. He will definitely lose now and should be dragged to a Russian Army camp to get some fitness beaten into him.

Da Vinci Code last night. Dreadful - truly awful.

Its called The Narrows (I think). I thought it was the weakest of the Bosch books. I'm not in general a fan of the whole "bringing back ex-villains" element of the genre though. It always smacks of publishers telling authors it would be a commercially good idea to reintroduce bad guys that people have already heard of.

Dont read the follow up to The Poet - it is awful! If you like Connolly's books I recommend Harlan Coben - I think you would like them. I concur on Hanks. Only Nicholas Cage annoys me more.

To be fair, that does happen at the very start, so you aren't learning much!

I quite liked it. Apparently the film has been panned by those getting a sneak preview though.

To be fair, without reading a word of it I knew that would be the case. Label me surprised

I always wondered who actually bought that book. Now I know!

London Bridges by James Patterson. If you ever want to know exactly how not to write a book, this should be the standard text. So many reasons why it was dreadful, I can't even be bothered starting on them. Drivel. Quite how he is apparently the world's best selling author I will never know.

Jamie Murray is clearly there on the "my brother is good ticket" - Colin Fleming is a much better player than him.