Murray needs to relax and enjoy himself, his time will come

Some will have caught this piece by Kevin Mitchell of the Guardian interviewing John McEnroe on Andy Murray's chances of winning a Grand Slam, provided you wade through the mandatory dozen pages of world cup coverage last week.

Now 23, Murray is beginning to be frustrated by the fact that his maiden grand slam victory has not yet arrived. McEnroe believes it will come, but not at Wimbledon. The pressure being so great at SW19, and considering his game is more suited to the hard court, he thinks that the U.S. Open will be the perfect opportunity for the Scot, or Brit, or whatever the English media is calling him.

Still, considering McEnroe had 4 Grand Slam titles under his belt at 23, it is hard to see that the American understands Murray's conundrum. He sees Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Del Potro, all with their first slams under their respective belts at 21, 18, 20 and 20.

If you go back and look at every grand slam winner in the last thirty years (1980 onwards), you see that only 11 of those 35 players won their first grand slam after the age of 23. Juan Carlos Ferrero is the only one of that group to win his first (and only) at 23. Even worse, only one of those 11 players went on to win more than one, and that was the Czeck Ivan Lendl (the other nine are: Goran Ivanisevic, Richard Krajicek, Thomas Johansson, Brian Teacher, Peter Korda, Gaston Gaudio, Albert Costa, Thomas Munster and Andres Gomez). But Lendl went on to win seven more, so maybe Murray can too. Gomez was 30 when he won the 1990 French Open, while Korda was also 30 when he won the 1998 Australian Open. All you need is your best tennis for two whole weeks and a big slice of luck.

If he wants to win a slam, of course Murray has to bring his A-game, but there are two big obstacles in his way, in the form of Nadal and Federer. The Swiss is so good in Grand Slam finals, you almost feel that for Murray to win a slam, he would have to play Federer before the final. Federer may have retained his number one seeding for Wimbledon because of his six tournament wins, but Nadal is the top of the ATP rankings, and were he to say, beat Federer in the Wimbledon final, as he did in 2008, it might see the Swiss seeded number two for the U.S. Open. And that could, and I say could mean a semi-final tie with Murray in two months time at Flushing Meadows.

As for Wimbledon, Murray has avoided the kind of draw he encountered in Roland Garros. Murray's quarter of the draw contains Fernando Verdasco and Jo-Wilfred Tsonga, potential quarter-final opponents, but apart from potential fourth-round opponents in Sam Querrey, the finalist at Queens, or the Spaniard Ferrero, he should find it easy enough to get into the second week. In comparison he had the headache of facing Richard Gasquet, Juan Ignacio Chela, Marcos Bagdhatis and Tomas Berdych in Paris in the first four rounds. No wonder he looked out of it for the match with the Czech.

Perhaps the distraction of the World Cup will aid him in avoiding the hype that has been a hindrance rather than help in recent years (Henmania or Murray-mania has never done a player any good, ever). There is also the added spur of eclipsing the English performance, although some might turn to him for consolation if England do indeed crash out, much like 2006 when England were beaten by Portugal on the same day that Murray produced a sensational performance to top third-seed Andy Roddick in straight sets.

Murray needs to enjoy himself out on the court, as McEnroe points out, and not let himself be shackled by national expectation. The England-Algeria game was a fine example of how much damage it can do to a sportsman's confidence. If you do not enjoy it, is there any point in being out there on court?