Andy Murray reacted after winning his second consecutive Olympic gold medal in men’s singles. Credit Luis Acosta/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
News From The New York Times
RIO DE JANEIRO — Andy Murray of Britain put a brighter shine on his finest tennis season by winning his second straight Olympic gold medal in singles on Sunday night, but surely Juan Martín del Potro of Argentina deserves something more precious than silver.
It won’t be ranking points or prize money. This Olympic tennis tournament offered neither, but del Potro gave it his all just the same, providing start-to-finish entertainment and sentimental resonance as he continued his comeback from three surgeries on his left wrist.
“I fought to my last fingernail,” he said.
All the 141st-ranked del Potro lacked was his perfect ending, but Murray, the remarkable Scot, refused to cooperate, hustling and scrapping through his own considerable fatigue to win the grueling final, 7-5, 4-6, 6-2, 7-5.
Murray is the first player to win two Olympic gold medals in singles. Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer have yet to win one.
But this was quite a different task from Murray’s first Olympic victory, when he beat Federer on home grass in straight sets for gold at the 2012 London Games.
Sunday’s victory required 4 hours 2 minutes of hard labor on a slow court against a leg-weary but still extremely dangerous opponent.
“At the time, that was the first time I’d won any sort of major event, and it was a home Olympics,” Murray said of his first gold medal. “But this has been much harder than London. That match in the final there was fairly straightforward in terms of the score line, whereas tonight anything could have happened.”
So it seemed. Del Potro reached the final after an intense three-set victory over Rafael Nadal of Spain in a semifinal on Saturday afternoon. Nadal looked quite weary in the bronze-medal match, which he lost on Sunday to Kei Nishikori of Japan.
And del Potro was clearly suffering in the aftermath, too.
He looked repeatedly out of fuel, leaning on his racket or even the net after long rallies in an attempt to catch his breath. But he then repeatedly summoned surprising reserves of energy to come up with thunderous forehands, clutch serves or effective shots on the run.
But Murray was fresher, quicker and, ultimately, just a bit steadier. The final rally of the match — an extended and exhausting exchange that ended with a backhand slice in the net from del Potro — was a fitting punctuation mark.
“The crowds made me run all the time,” del Potro said of the support he received from his fellow Argentines and, more surprisingly, quite a few Brazilians. “But I never felt I will win the match for sure because Andy was playing really well in important moments, and he has the experience to put the ball in in that moment. And he deserved to win, because he was smarter than me in the end of all the sets.”
The victory secured, Murray did not have the energy for cartwheels or even a leaping fist pump. He simply wandered to the net, looking a little vacant-eyed, and waited for del Potro — one of the slowest walkers in tennis even when fresh — to join him.
When del Potro finally arrived, they exchanged a long embrace, and then both returned to their courtside chairs to shed a few tears.
It was that kind of tournament, a crying game from beginning to end, with the tears already flowing on Day 1 when del Potro knocked out Djokovic in the opening round.
There were more on Friday, when Nadal won the gold medal in men’s doubles for Spain with his boyhood friend Marc Lopez; more on Saturday when the unseeded Monica Puig completed one of the most unlikely runs in tennis history by winning the women’s singles and Puerto Rico’s first Olympic gold medal.
All those who question whether tennis belongs in the Olympics would be wise to review all of the above. The looks on players’ faces in defeat and victory rival any feelings that ever get stirred up by Grand Slam results.
Murray has had a particularly emotional stretch of his own: becoming a father for the first time earlier this season and then sobbing in his chair with release after winning his second Wimbledon title last month. But his counterpunching tennis has remained exceptional, and Sunday’s victory extended his career-high winning streak to 18 matches.
He is still the No. 2 player in the world behind Djokovic, but Murray is the man of the moment as he heads to this week’s Masters 1000 in Cincinnati (or at least that is the plan for now) and then the year’s final Grand Slam event, the United States Open, which begins Aug. 29.
When Djokovic won the French Open for the first time in June, defeating Murray in the final, he held all four major singles titles and was sparking serious and understandable discussion about the possibility of completing the Golden Slam by winning all four Grand Slam singles titles and the Olympics in the same calendar year.
But the landscape has shifted quickly with considerable help here from del Potro, whose ranking will not improve as a result but who certainly deserves a wild card into the United States Open.
At the end of last year, with his left wrist continuing to trouble him, he seriously considered retirement. But in the last six weeks, he has beaten Stan Wawrinka, Djokovic and Nadal and given Murray quite a fright.
His reward was a silver medal to go with the bronze he won in London in 2012.
“More than the color of the medal, I’ll remember the whole experience,” he said with his latest prize around his neck. “This is only the reward, but it’s not what I’ll keep with me. That’s inside.”
In an all-American mixed doubles final, Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Jack Sock defeated Venus Williams and Rajeev Ram, 6-7 (3), 6-1 and 10-7 in the match tiebreak. It was the second medal for Sock in Rio. He won a bronze medal in men’s doubles with Steve Johnson.
It was the fifth medal over all for Williams, 36, who had won four gold medals in previous Olympics. In the women’s doubles final, Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina of Russia defeated Martina Hingis and Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland, 6-4, 6-4.
0 comments:
Post a Comment