Murray nearly lost his chance for the tryst with history. Playing the Aegon Championships final against Canada’s Milos Raonic, the Scot lost the first set and trailed 0-3 in the second. With the Canadian making fire with his trademark booming service, just the crowd support wasn’t enough for Murray. But just in the nick of time, world’s no.2 player managed to pull himself back from the ditch and surprised Raonic. The three-set victory gave Murray a unique distinction of winning the prestigious Queen’s Club tournament 5 times. Seven players have won the tournament on 4 occasions each and Murray has exceeded that count to become the only man to do so for the fifth time in the 126 year old history of the event. In the only other ATP event of last week, Florin Mayer lifted the Halle trophy after beating compatriot Alexander Zverev. The German teenager had sent shockwaves earlier by defeating Federer in semifinal but couldn’t repeat his heroics against Mayer.
The attention in Sunday’s Queen’s Club final was not undivided. While Andy Murray and Milos Raonic began hitting practice balls before the match, TV cameras and viewers couldn’t stop focusing on Ivan Lendl and John McEnroe. After all, the last millennium’s two celebrity stars had their wards playing against each other. While Murray began another stint with Lendl as his coach, Raonic hired McEnroe for this year’s grass season. Of the seven players, who won at Queen’s Club 4 times; McEnroe was one of them. Lendl won the tournament twice in 1989, 1990 and McEnroe reached the finals on 7 occasions and won in 1979, 1980, 1981 and 1984.
The two players were equally matched in the first set that went on serves all the way to 6-6. Now it was important for Murray to deal with the Canadian’s service bombs. The TV showed McEnroe pouting as Raonic led 3-0. Murray looked somewhat frustrated with himself but still managed to draw level at 5-5 as the crowds roared. However, Raonic stole a point from Murray and finished off next to take the first set. Raonic began the second set by holding his serve and breaking Murray’s next. The lead jumped to 3-0 as Raonic held his service again.
In the German city of Halle, history of another kind was made, when Florian Mayer became one of the lowest ranked players at world no.192 to win an ATP tournament. Mayer’s tennis career looked like ending 2 years ago, after an adductor injury sidelined him from active tennis. On Sunday however, the 32-year old Mayer beat his energetic and 13-year younger compatriot Alexander Zverev in three sets in only the second all-German final in the 24-year history of Halle. Zverev began promisingly by forcing Mayer to deuce in the opening game and holding his own serve at love next. However, Mayer soon changed all that. The veteran used a generous dose of lobs to catch Zverev off-guard and won the first set by breaking Zverev in sixth and eighth games. Zverev reversed the momentum in second set to force a decider. In the third set, the two Germans stayed on serves until the sixth game, when Mayer broke Zverev for a 4-2 lead. On his own serve next, he fought off to deny a break back to Zverev to make it 5-2 and finally closed out the match at 6-2, 5-7, 6-3 to win the Gerry Weber Open. The comeback man, thus denied Zverev to become the youngest ever title winner at Halle.