Following on from another successful week, Planet Sport tennis expert Derek Bilton is backing Andy Murray to shine at the Swiss Indoors.
Yet another week, and yet another champion. Not only did Ben Shelton come through for us by defeating Tommy Paul at 11/10 last week, but he proceeded to claim his maiden ATP title by winning the Japan Open.
The 21-year-old’s victory moved him up to a career-high of 15th in the men’s rankings on Monday, and he looks to have a bright future.
Andy Murray meanwhile is more concerned with the present. The Scot started the week at No 40 in the ATP Rankings and knows he needs to put together a run at the Swiss Indoors and/or at the Paris Masters to boost his hopes of being seeded for the 2023 Australian Open.
It’s remarkable that Murray is still going. He has won majors and banked millions, and yet the fire still burns within him. If I were Muzza, having scaled the very top of the mountain, I may well have descended into a world of heavy drinking and kebabs by now, safe in the knowledge I have secured my legacy.
He is learning the hard way that in some sports you just cannot chase a young man’s dream on middle-age legs. That said, I fancy him to do a job on Tomas Martin Etcheverry on Wednesday night in Basel.
The young Argentine is no mug and snapped a three-match losing streak with a 6-3 1-6 6-3 win over the useful Sebastian Korda in Round 1. Etcheverry has a ferocious forehand and huge serve, and his game is quite similar in that respect to his fellow countryman, the much loved and missed “Tower of Tandil” Juan Martin Del Potro.
Etcheverry was one of the standout performers at Roland Garros this year, elevating his game with a breakthrough run to a first Grand Slam quarter-final.
The 23-year-old plays with a flamboyant, swashbuckling style and likes to drag his opponent all over the court with that forehand. Up to 32 in the world right now, you get the feeling there’s a top 20 player in there somewhere.
Like ‘Delpo’ he’s a bit of an outlier in as much as he is a big hitter from a place that doesn’t produce many big hitters. Argentina tends to produce grinders that hit groundies with heavy spin, and less power. Players who like to use brain over brawn like the inimitable David Nalbandian or Guillermo Coria, whose flame burned so brightly for a time on clay in the early noughties.
Murray snapped his own three-match losing streak with a 7-5 6-4 win over the world No 51 Yannick Hanfmann in Switzerland and played an outrageous first set that lasted 84 minutes in that one.
This could be a classic ‘Bull v Matador’ encounter between a gnarled old veteran and a young powerhouse. It should be a good watch but Murray may just know a bit too much and want it more. ‘Natural guts defeating natural talent’, as that prodigiously gifted but constantly mullered American poet and novelist Charles Bukowski might say.
Give me Murray, using all his craft, guile and experience on this surface, in straight sets.
