The match served as a microcosm of what both players are trying to achieve.

For Andy Murray, he’s long been criticized for being too passive.  In the past, he ignored those who made the criticism but realized there was one player that was making his life difficult, namely, Rafael Nadal.  Nadal, more than any other player, has a huge strike zone.  He seems practically immune to Murray’s change of pace.  He can hit balls hard that are very low to very high.  The one strategy that seems to work, and you have to be smart about it, is to hit hard and make Nadal run.

Murray has also had a second problem.  Up until recently, he’s been a very crosscourt player.  That is, under pressure, Murray much prefers to his crosscourt rather than down the line.  Indeed, two years ago, when Ferrer was starting to play some of his best tennis, he punished Murray by peppering the Scot’s backhand with inside out forehand.  Ferrer was comfortable with the fact that Murray wouldn’t try hitting his backhand up the line to counter this strategy.  By contrast, world number 1, Novak Djokovic has always loved the down-the-line shot and it’s this confidence that has allowed him to handle opponents of all sorts, including Rafael Nadal.

In the past few months, Murray has been working on the down-the-line shots, both on the forehand and on the backhand realizing he needs this option under pressure if he is to play Nadal or Djokovic.

Similarly, Andy Roddick has also been criticized for being too passive.  Roddick’s passivity often comes from not going for winners.  Roddick still hits a pretty heavy ball, but he’s opted to be more patient.  This strategy works pretty well against lower ranked players, but it’s not worked that well against the very best players.  In particular, Federer recently had a comprehensive beat down of Roddick.  To be fair, that Basel encounter was a bad serving day for Roddick who rarely serves under 50% but was well below that giving Federer considerable opportunities to run his American opponent ragged.

Roddick, like Murray, is also a strongly crosscourt player, and to some extent, he still is.  If Roddick has a weakness that he hasn’t been able to hide well, it’s his backhand.  Roddick’s backhand is one that keeps him in points.  He can’t dictate off his backhand like, say, Djokovic or Murray.  To be fair, Nadal’s backhand is rarely used to dictate points, but Rafa is incredible when it comes to passing off that backhand, a skill Roddick lacks (as do many players).

In this match, Roddick’s goal was simple.  Go for his shots.  Roddick understands that, at this lofty level, a player like Murray can withstand one or two hard shots.  Indeed, he can handle 4-5 such shots.  That means Roddick can’t merely hit a hard shot and hope it’s a winner.  He has to be willing to hit hard shot after hard shot.

The fact is, Roddick can hit very hard.  He can get great angles with his shot, but Murray’s used to this hard hitting and with his newfound penchance for hitting down the line plus his skill at hitting hard crosscourt, he made Roddick’s life very difficult.

Roddick wanted to keep points short knowing that Murray is so much more versatile off the ground.  To this effect, he wanted to attack the net despite his less-than-stellar volleying skills.  Sometimes Roddick was drawn in by Murray’s short slices and sometimes he initiated the attack.  But time and again, he was met with brilliant passes.  Many of the approaches to the Murray forehand were met with down-the-line passes which is intriguing because Murray loves to pass crosscourt.

Roddick’s other problem has been his serve.  Roddick no longer serves a ton of aces like he used to do.  Murray is a great returner.  The combination resulted in Roddick hitting 1 ace to Murray’s 7.

With Roddick attacking, Murray went into offense mode and was chasing down shots, hitting drop shots, passing, and a whole flurry of amazing shots.  Let’s just say this match wasn’t too close despite Roddick hitting the ball fairly well.  Murray seemed to have answers for everything Roddick had to offer.  Murray took the first set, 6-2, and was up 4-0 in dominating fashion before Roddick held twice to finish with a 6-2 second set loss.  Those two holds helped the match creep over the one hour mark as it was in serious danger of being completed under an hour.  Roddick was, at one point, so frustrated that he couldn’t even win one particularly long rally that he smashed his racquet into pieces.

As he lumbered to his bag to get a new racquet, chair umpire, Mohamed Lahyani finally called racquet abuse and said he had no choice.  Roddick complained that Lahyani had waited too long (as if he were thinking whether he should call the warning or not).  Lahyani smiled and agreed.  Roddick seemed to realize an ongoing dialog with Lahyani was not going to prevent the shellacking he was taking from the world number 3.

In tournaments like this where matches are played in consecutive days (up to 4 matches in 4 days starting today), keeping matches short is of paramount importance.  Murray clearly didn’t want a 3-setter if he could avoid it.  Up next for Murray is the winner of Berdych and Tipsarevic.

While Roddick has to be frustrated with this loss, he also has to realize his attempt to be more aggressive did, more or less, work in practice and while it didn’t serve him well against Murray, such shot making should help him in his quest to return to the top ten.

I think the key for Roddick is figuring out how to make his serve more effective, especially against the top players.  Murray has sacrificed high first serve percentages for the chance at winning free points on his serve.  I think he’s hoping, with enough practice, the percentages might inch up though serves don’t seem to work that way.

Berdych just came from 5-2 down against Janko Tipsarevic to win 5 games in a row to take the first set.  Tipsarevic has a pretty good record against Berdych even if Berdych is a more natural power hitter.  Tipsarevic generally gets a lot of balls back and this makes Berdych’s life tough.

Currently, Djokovic is playing countryman, Troicki.  In a recent interview, Djokovic said his shoulder is not great (it’s inflammed), but it’s good enough to play matches.

All third round matches (there are 8) will be played today and the quarterfinals played Friday.