I do believe Murray can win a slam this year but he will need a lot of luck.

There have been few bigger build-ups to a career than that of Andy Murray. The media was all over him from day one citing his performances in the juniors for some major hype. Since 1999 Murray had been making an impact and it didn’t take long before people started noticing. It was finally confirmed that Murray had huge potential when he won the US Open boys singles championship in 2004.

The trouble with the juniors though is that success at that level does not necessarily lead on to success at the top of the game. Players are at such a different level when so young, both physically and mentally, and as such there are many players who perform well in the juniors but not so well on tour. Numerous junior champions find life a lot harder on the tour. Have you ever heard of Florin Mergea? Few people have despite him winning the Wimbledon boys event in 2003. Daniel Elsner of Germany won 3 junior slams in a row in 1996 and 1997 and yet  he only ever won one match at a pro grand slam event. Worst of all, Clement Morel won the Australian Open Juniors in 2002 and has a career high ranking of 387.

Of course, Andy Murray was never likely to be one of those players. As he came on to the ATP tour the hysteria surrounding him increased greatly and as he proved time and again that he belonged near the top of the game that hysteria and that expectation continued to rise. When he defeated Tim Henman in Switzerland in 2005 it was seen as a passing of the torch. Henman had been slowly burning out for some time and with him the hopes of a nation had faded, but now a new light was upon us, someone who had beaten Henman, someone who had won a junior grand slam and someone who was burning brightly on the ATP tour and starting to make a real impact.

In 2006, before he was 20 years old, Murray began to beat top players with more regularity. He disposed of Roddick and Hewitt to capture his first ATP title and from there he didn’t look back. After making his first grand slam final in 2008 it was expected in some quarters that Murray may be ready to even rise to world number one by the end of 2009. Unfortunately though, his performance levels stayed much the same. Since that slam final in the US, Murray has been stuck at a permanent level slightly below the very best players.

It is often claimed that Murray’s style of play does not help him. Pundits and journalists alike recommend that he is more aggressive in his play and encourage him to stop standing so far behind the baseline. Unfortunately though it is largely his excellent defence which has got him to where he is. There are many players who make very good solid careers playing in that style. Others, in an attempt to win grand slams or take their game to the next level, change from this style of play to a more aggressive one and that can have disastrous consequences as Gilles Simon has found to his cost over the last two years with his ranking falling from number six to number 42. Murray is a vastly superior player to Simon but the dangers of a large increase in aggression still remain.

Andy Murray is not in control of his own destiny against a number of players in the game today. Bigger hitters with attacking mentalities are often the ones who decide if they win or lose matches against Murray. It is true that Murray’s defence is such that if his more aggressive opponents don’t perform very well he will beat them but the issue for Murray is that at the business end of slams his opponents will be performing very well. This is not a recommendation to become more aggressive, Murray’s game is defensive and that’s how it should remain, that’s why he is one of the best players in the world. On the contrary he should continue to play defensively. The trouble is that it is hard to expect a player who plays like that to win the big ones.

For several years we have been told of Murray’s genius by the media and told that he would win a grand slam. The pressure on him has been immense and in all honesty his game and his junior career don’t deserve the level of  pressure that was piled on him. He responded to the original traumas of media hype in style and flew up the rankings but now that he has frozen in the chasing pack the pressure is getting unbearable. Early exits in slams and a few bad losses elsewhere should be accepted, his “destiny” to be a slam winner should be questioned but instead the media believes that Murray is a major player in every slam that comes around. It must be highly frustrating for Murray and his fans to see him as a predicted slam winner at every turn only to stumble and fall in the end.

People have questioned Murray’s mentality in an attempt to explain away his struggles when it really matters but that has never been Murray’s issue. Mentally Murray is fairly strong, it is other factors that stop him short. He is an exceptionally good player but he is not a great one. Unfortunately he is playing at a time when there is real greatness in the game. Due to his style of play he needs to play at his very best to win a slam. Moreover and more worryingly, he needs more than that. He needs other players to perform considerably below their best.

Murray has proven that he is a huge danger at grand slams but not that he can win them. This new season is a pivotal one for Murray. After a promising start to last year he fell away and once again could not capture a slam title. Next year he cannot afford to stop believing, he must make improvements, not necessarily to his game but rather to his slam status. Currently there are only two players who one expects to win a grand slam, Federer and Nadal. Murray must ensure that he joins that list. More disappointments in slam finals would be dangerous, players can fall apart after numerous finals and so next year Murray has to push for a slam. To win one, rather than a new style of play or a different mentality, Murray needs to play very well and get a lot of luck along the way. It is unlikely, not impossible. 2011 is the most important year of his career so far and if he doesn’t make the big step up now, he quite possibly never will.