Andy Murray has never made a living out of shortening tennis points but John McEnroe believes that it's necessary if he wants to keep playing at a high level.
Murray surprised many by producing a great effort at the Australian Open winning two excellent matches and playing a good third. It ended in the 3rd round for him but he showed himself and many others that he still has what it takes to win matches. To do so in the future, Murray will need to shorten points according to John McEnroe:
“Andy is a bit of a counterpuncher. This has been talked about for numerous years, the need to be more aggressive. He's one of the great returners that [have] ever played. To me, he needs to take advantage of that and be more willing to move forward and finish points more quickly."
He added:
“I think [Rafael] Nadal has been doing a great job of that recently in the last four or five years where he picks the right moments to shorten points. Andy is no fool, he's tactically very smart. I'm sure that going over this, it's not his natural inclination. He may feel like he doesn't have that explosion, that first step that he used to have. So maybe he's a little hesitant about moving forward. That's a dilemma.”