Roger Federer’s ex-coach Ivan Ljubicic has been left
impressed by the statement of the former world number one Britain’s
Andy Murray
regarding how he learnt a few things after watching the final of
Wimbledon 2023.
It was Spain’s young tennis sensation
Carlos Alcaraz who got
the better of Serbia’s legendary player
Novak Djokovic in a five-set thriller with
a score of 1–6, 7–6(8–6), 6–1, 3–6, 6–4 to lift the third Grand Slam of the
year in London last month.
Murray, in a video shared by a social media platform page
Tennis TV, stated that he ‘learnt a lot’ watching the final.
“I learnt a lot watching those two,” said Murray. “As the match
went on, I thought they both played better and better and you could almost see
Alcaraz learning as the match was going on. It could’ve gone either way to be
honest, it was that tight.
“I ended up taking some videos of the guys, just focusing on
one side of the net. Looking at their return positions and movement between
shots. Also looking at the times when, particularly Alcaraz, was looking to
play aggressive, offensive tennis and how he was going about doing that, when I
was sitting there, I was also looking a little bit at the teams and seeing the
players and their reactions between the points.
“Both of them, on the TV, appear like they are calm, [but] you
actually see there’s a lot of stress and frustration and all of those things
which, when you just watch on TV, they often cut to people in the crowd for the
guy that’s just won the point and you don’t see those immediate reactions.
Seeing the frustration was there but also how they were responding to it was
interesting.”
Ljubicic, while quoting that tweet, urged the young players
to follow in the footsteps of someone like Murray and watch full tennis match
instead of just watching highlight to learn how great players adapt to
different situations.
"This is for the 'manual' on HOW to watch tennis
matches if you're a player. Today I find that young players are not watching
enough tennis. If anything, highlights, which obviously don't say anything
about the match. So much can be learned from matches of other players,” he tweeted.
