Hi all. I'm not sure whether anyone nominated today's "Moment of 2008", but I don't see how I can leave it out. Never mind that my personal reaction at the time was one of deep disappointment, because I was rooting hard for the other guy to come through, having crossed the Atlantic to be there. I'd said all along that during my year-long "Rafa Euro-Spectator slam" I would make a special trip to New York if El Manacori could go one better than he'd managed in earlier years, to reach a US Open semifinal. My original plan was to stay for Super Saturday and the Sunday final, whatever the outcome of the semis. Thanks to the weather, that's not how it turned out.
Andy Murray produced a few special performances in 2008, but surely his biggest achievement was his four-set victory over the world number one in that US Open semifinal, to take him into his first Grand Slam final. Unusually, the match was played over two days and on two different courts, beginning on Louis Armstrong stadium and ending on Ashe stadium.
As most of you will remember, that weekend's tennis was disrupted by the remnants of Hurricane Hanna, forcing the organisers to make a choice about the timing and location of the Murray-Nadal match. It started while the other semi, between Roger Federer and Novak Dokovic, was still under way on Ashe Stadium. As the rain pelted down, it ended for the day with Nadal leading with a break in the third set, Murray having dominated the first two. On the Sunday restart the match had moved over to Ashe stadium, and Nadal took the third set. The fourth set was a real battle, and Murray showed tremendous determination and imagination in taking it.
In reaching the US Open final, Murray not only conquered his nemesis Nadal for the first time, but survived a sticky five-setter against an inspired Jurgen Melzer by coming through a pivotal third-set tiebreak, blasted away tenth seed Stanislas Wawrinka in straight sets, and in the quarterfinals disposed of one of the summer's form players, Juan Martin Del Potro, coming off a four-tournament winning streak.
Murray's US Open performance was no fluke, though at the start of 2008 it would have been difficult to predict, as he exited in the first round of the Australian Open, at the hands of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Murray also took two titles early in 2008, but he'd never gone past the fourth round at any Slam, and the clay season didn't change that. It wasn't until Wimbledon came around that he broke through, coming back to win from two sets down against Richard Gasquet in front of a home crowd on Centre Court, making the quarterfinals (where he lost to Nadal). While this match was going on, I was seated on Court 1, but the noise from Centre Court and Henman Hill was massive, and it was difficult to concentrate on the match that I was watching, especially as the scores from the other match kept flashing up on our scoreboard during the changeovers. I saw the end of the match in near-darkness among the ecstatic crowd on Henman Hill.
