And yet today Murray will stride out on to the Court Philippe Chatrier knowing that he is just three sets away from the Roland Garros title.
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In addition to trying to complete a career Grand Slam, Djokovic will be hoping to accomplish something even more rare – winning a fourth consecutive major title, something that hasn’t been done by a man in almost a half-century.
The first British man to reach the Roland Garros final in 79 years, Murray became the 10th man to reach all four major finals as he beat reigning champion Stan Wawrinka in the last four.
Three times Djokovic had been to the final, and three times he had fallen short, losing to Rafael Nadal in 2012 and 2014 and to Stan Wawrinka past year. But I remember most of my matches against Novak, more than I do against others, because they have been most of the biggest matches for me: Australian Open finals, Wimbledon final, Olympics, US Opens, here past year in the semis. He does not want to get locked into to a battle of attrition with the fittest, most hungry player in the game. He had to fight back from two sets to love down in his opening match against Radek Stepanek, a player ranked 148 in the world.
If Murray takes home the trophy from Paris he will be the first Brit to do so since 1935. “I don’t know if he’s going to be able to keep this up, so to me he has got his best shot ever”. “It’s really my job to make it as hard as possible for him so that hopefully he has a few doubts, which all athletes get, at different stages”. “The way that game turned out is what made it so nerve-racking”.
The Serbian has become nearly peerless in the sweltering, early-season slog of the Australian Open and has mastered Wimbledon in the past two seasons, while his hard-court prowess makes him the favourite heading into any US Open. Djokovic, of course, is looking to complete the career Grand Slam and keep alive his chances of pulling off the calendar Grand Slam and getting close to Roger Federer’s record of 17 Grand Slam titles too.
Here at SportPulse the general consensus is that this will be Djokovic in 4 sets but maybe this is Murray’s time to end another drought in British tennis.
Regardless of the result, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray will remain one and two in the world respectively when the rankings are updated on Monday.
“Novak”, Murray noted, “obviously plays great on all of the surfaces”. We played I think previous year in five sets. “I’ve lost some tough matches against him, in Australia especially”.
“I didn’t necessarily expect to be in this position a couple of years ago”. Not all of them have gone my way.
“I’m sure that it’s gonna be a final with a lot of emotions and a lot of exchanges from the baseline because we have similar styles of game”.
It is also a remarkable turnaround given that clay always used to be Murray’s most challenging surface.
“Well, we played two finals already on clay-court tournaments in Madrid and Rome back to back”.
If his quarter-final win over seventh seed Tomas Berdych was comfortable, the lesson he dealt 22-year-old Thiem on Suzanne-Lenglen Court was emphatic; the 6-2, 6-1, 6-4 score-line aptly reflected the command he held over this semi-final.
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Djokovic has lost just twice on the ATP Tour this year, but both came on clay and the last was to Murray in the final in Rome.
