Murray’s loss upsetting to a journalist

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — Timing is everything, isn’t it? We pose the question to Simon Barnes, the excellent sports columnist from the Times of London who crossed the Atlantic solely to bring to his readers the progress of Andy Murray as he tried for a second straight U.S. Open tennis championship.
   
Murray, the Scot, not only took the Open a year ago but this summer became the first Brit in 77 years to win Wimbledon, a feat that earned front-page headlines in every publication from John O’Groats (as far north as one can go and still be on the British mainland) to Land’s End (as far south).
  
Barnes arrived in New York just in time for Murray on Thursday to play in the quarterfinals, which against the other guy from Switzerland — Stanislas Wawrinka, not Roger Federer, who was long gone — figured to be a Murray victory.
   
It was not, however. Wawrinka, with great ground strokes and big serves, upset Murray, 6-4, 6-3, 6-2. He also upset Barnes, whose sole purpose was to write about his countryman.
  
“It never fails,” said Barnes. “I’ve never seen him win a match, except at Wimbledon.” Those are not to be dismissed, certainly, and Barnes did have the exhilaration of describing Murray’s historic triumph in July.
   
Still, now and then, Barnes would like his paper to be rewarded for sending him to the four corners of the globe. Twice he went all the way from London to Australia, a journey of nearly 24 hours, to watch and cover Murray, who inconveniently lost the two matches Barnes attended.
  
But as bad as Barnes feels, Murray, 26, must feel worse. Murray was a semifinalist in 2011 and, of course, a champion in 2012, winning a Slam for the first time. He was ranked and seeded third and had won his previous 11 matches here at Flushing Meadows.
 
“I would have liked to have played a little bit better,”  said Murray, “but, you know, I had a good run the last couple of years. It’s a shame I had to play a bad match today.”
   
And that Wawrinka, 28 and making it to the semifinals of a Grand Slam event for the first time in his career, had to play an excellent one.
  
“I thought he played great,” affirmed Murray. “He hit big shots. He passed extremely well. He hit a lot of lines on big points. He served well. That was it. He played a great match.”
   
A match that elevated Wawrinka into the semifinals.
     
“To beat him in three sets,” Wawrinka said in an understatement, “is quite good for me.”
   
Because in pressure situations, Wawrinka has been known to come apart like a cheap watch — not one made in Switzerland, however.
  

“Normally,” Wawrinka conceded, “I can be a little nervous and I can lose a few games because of that, but today I was just focused on my game. It was windy, was not easy conditions, but my plan was to push him to be aggressive, because I know Andy can be a little bit too defensive. I like it when he’s far back from the baseline, and today I did it well.”
   
Murray made no excuses, but he reached the summit of the mountain with victory at Wimbledon, where no British male had won singles since 1936. Surely everything else is Peoria. Even Flushing Meadows, where last year he knocked off Novak Djokovic in the final.
   
It’s hard for an American, a Spaniard, a Swiss to comprehend what winning Wimbledon means to a Brit, and to Britain, even if he’s a Scot, not an Englishman. Lawn tennis developed in Britain, where the Wimbledon tournament is as much a part of the nation as Buckingham Palace.
   
Over there it’s known simply as “The Championships.”
    
That would make Murray The Champion.
    
“It’s not about focus,” he said, responding to a question about competition after Wimbledon. “You know when you work so hard for something for a lot of years, it’s going to take some time to really fire yourself up and get yourself training 110 percent.
   
“I think it’s kind of natural after what happened at Wimbledon.”
   
Murray, one of the game’s big four for several years, was properly philosophical, and had the right to be, when asked about the last 12 months as he broke through with two major titles.
 
“I mean,” he said, “it’s been challenging both ways for different reasons. Physically, I played some extremely tough matches in that period. Mentally, it was very challenging for me to play — Wimbledon, the last few games at Wimbledon may not seem like much to you guys, but to me it was extremely challenging.
    
“I’ve played my best tennis in the Slams the past two, three years. I mean, I lose today in straight sets. I would have liked to have gone further. But I can’t complain. If someone told me before the U.S. Open last year I would have been here as defending champion, having won Wimbledon and Olympic gold, I could have taken that 100 percent.”
    
So could Simon Barnes, if he had not chased Andy Murray across the sea for the story.