Wimbledon Betting: Murray nerves signal tough times ahead

Wimbledon Betting / Ralph Ellis / 24 June 2009 / Leave a Comment

Andy Murray's first round win showed that the route to ending the 73 year wait for a male British winner at SW19 won't be an easy one, says Ralph Ellis.

When Fred Perry won the first of his three Wimbledon titles in 1934, the BBC was still two years away from launching the world's first television service. That saved millions of housewives sitting through the sort of nervy agony they have suffered in the last decade watching Tim Henman and now Andy Murray.

Britain's latest big hope provided the Beeb with just what they wanted yesterday, a nervy match to collect increasing numbers of tea-time viewers before he finally got through the first round. And it's already clear that for all the young Scotsman's confidence, and the work he's done on his fitness, strength and stamina, the route to ending the 73 year wait for a male British winner at SW19 won't be an easy one.

Murray can talk all he likes about keeping his focus, about ignoring pressure, and about using the crowd as a positive rather than a negative. But there is one staring reality for him about this year's Wimbledon - it might not be the first time he's been Britain's sole flag bearer, but it is the first time he's been expected to carry that standard all the way to the final. And that is a massive task for him to come to terms with.

I was interested to read Greg Rusedski's assessment in today's Daily Mirror of the demands that Murray will face. "Murray looked nervous . . . If he was not feeling the weight of public expectation he would not be human," writes the former world number four.

"The British public are not just hoping he can reach the final, they are expecting it. And I think that is more pressure than myself or Tim Henman ever faced in our home Grand Slam."

It's worth taking that context as you decide whether to put hard cash behind the patriotic bandwagon that has been rolling behind Murray ever since Rafael Nadal announced he wasn't going to be fit enough to play. For any sportsman there's a huge mental difference between wanting, hoping and believing he can win and expecting to win. And until you've crossed that divide and delivered the expectations then you never really know for sure if you can do it.

It's why, to compare with another sport, Liverpool fell out of the title race the moment they were in front. They couldn't handle the pressure of some of the straightforward home games they were expected to collect three points in. And it could also be why Henman fell at the last Wimbledon hurdle so often.

At least in the short term Murray proved in his first round win over Robert Kendrick that he could lift his game under pressure. He'll have to do that again tomorrow because Latvian Ernests Gulbis is a dangerous opponent with the sort of attacking style that can get lucky on a grass court. And he should then justify his current odds of [1.34] to emerge victorious from his quarter of the draw.

After that it's a different matter, and I'm afraid I'm opting to lay him at [2.0] to reach the final. If the pressure of round one was enough to affect him, then just wait until a semi-final. And there any one of Andy Roddick, Lleyton Hewitt, Juan Martin Del Potro and Nikolay Davydenko would be more than capable of staging an upset before he even gets to meet Roger Federer for the title itself.

Five things you might not know about Ernests Gulbis

1. Age 20, he already has more than a million dollars in prize money to his name - but that's not too big a concern because he comes from a wealthy family. Dad Ainars is a millionaire investment banker and mum Milena a top theatre actress.

2. His paternal grandfather Alvils was one of the starting five players of the Soviet Union basketball team ASK Riga which won the European Championships.

3. His other grandfather Uldis Pucitis was a major movie actor and director, and Ernests has a love of films and literature from the 1970s.

4. He was coached by former Croatian star Niki Pilic since the age of 12, but recently moved to Karl Heinz Wetter.

5. He can speak Latvian, Russian, English and German.