[amongsttheleaves]

Safely through to the second week Andy Murray faces his first big test of the championships against Nick Kyrgios in the fourth round. The surprise third round exit of the number one seed and defending champion Novak Djokovic has placed the spotlight firmly on Andy, but he knows he has work to do before he can potentially benefit.

Andy has been supportive of Kyrgios since his arrival on tour, and the Australian number two clearly admires the world number two. The young Aussie plays instinctive, flashy, tennis, and enjoys the big stadiums, describing this Centre Court encounter as a 'dream'. Last season they faced each other at three of the four slams, and the match on the second Monday of Wimbledon completes the set. They have faced four times on the tour, with Andy winning in straight sets on three occasions and Kyrgios taking a set in their first round match at Flushing Meadows last year.

Kyrgios has one win against the world number two, an explosive straight sets win at the Hopman Cup - the season opening invitational national team competition held annually in Perth. The win doesn't officially count in the head-to-head, but it will give Kyrgios some confidence. From Andy's perspective he knows he wasn't at his best in Australia at the beginning of the season - even so he reached a fifth final in Melbourne - worrying about whether he should even be there as the birth of his daughter edged closer and closer, and apparently struggling slightly with his raquet customisation having reportedly changed his stronging and customisation supplier during the off-season. Since the middle of the clay season he has seemingly reverted to his old stringing company and at the beginning of the grass season he returned to using the freshly re-customised newly painted frames he started the year with.

In their previous Masters and Slam matches Andy's variety, return, and defence has proved too much for a young man who still has much to learn both on and off the court. Since their last meeting Andy has made further improvements to his serve and has been in solid form so far in this tournament. That said he has been broken by his last two opponents, but has fought back quickly to ensure he enters the second week without dropping a set.

As he enters the second week he'll want to increase his first serve percentage, reduce the level of backhand errors he displayed in his third round match, and increase his return points won: despite having strong stats on break points, Andy is curiously missing from the list of tournament leaders on return points won, particuarly on second serve return points won, a stat where he is usually high up the leader board, if not at the very top.

While Andy's matches have been largely untroubled by the rain, Kyrgios' second round match was played on Friday rather than Thursday, while his third round match was delayed by rain, then suspended due to bad light, and completed on the tournament's middle Sunday, playing nine sets in recent days. Nonetheless Kyrgios enters the match with his usual bravado and the belief he can defeat his hero on his home court.

The match will be played on Centre Court on Monday 4th July, scheduled third with an estimated start time of 5.30pm. The weather is due to be dry, with temperatures of around 17 degrees Celsius, a south-westerly breeze with gusts of up to 10 mph, and humidity of around 66%.

H2H by Bevc.

[tamila]

I see Nick has said he has the weapons to hurt Andy

[Thevalley]

Thanks for intro AMTL - interesting info:

You said among other things "... at the beginning of the grass season he returned to using the freshly re-customised newly painted frames he started the year with" 

Do you think this is something that affects performance? Seems marginal but to be honest I don't know. 

Really hard to tell how this one will go - I expect Andy to win as long as he stays calm and focused.

 One of these days it is going to click into place for Nick - he has the talent  - just hope it is not tomorrow.

[robbie]

Nick is 4/1 to beat Andy tomorrow(corals) I really think that's good odds.

[robbie]

That was probably a much more waffle filled reply than anyone wanted!

[scotnadian]

Yes things like racquets definately affect performance. In some cases it is significant - Dimitrov switiching to a larger racquet frame during the 2014 off-season for example has been a big factor in his problems, not the cause but a factor, and now he's decided to go back to the smaller frame he was having better results with in 2014.

In Andy's case we are talking a very marginal thing, but it was a factor. At the very top everything is about small margins and incremental gains. Andy tends to get fixated on things, part of what makes him great but it can also be detrimental, and I have always thought he is more susceptible to being affected by random small things than some other players, and is more impacted by 'conditions' than many people realise.

Basically what happened was that a new model of the raquet Andy endorses was released last autumn. Andy doesn't use the model he endorses - this is quite common particularly with Head racquets - but the frame he uses gets given the same paint job as the one he endorses. He endorses the Head Radical Graphene XT Pro, but actually uses the PT57A.

Head do the frame moulds and paint and then the frames get customised and strung by another company. From what I have read Andy made a change to the stringing/customisation company he uses, wasn't happy with the customisation - that would be things like the grip, lead taping etc - of the new frames during the AO so went back to using the old frames, but has now gone back to the company he used before, who have redone the customisation on the new frames and so now he's using the frames with the new paint rather than the old paint.

The other thing that was seen was that during the latter part of February he reversed the hybrid on his stringing - Andy uses hybrid mains strings and gut crosses, but in February practice sessions he was seen with gut mains and hybrid crosses, which some would argue gives a player more power but less control. A brief experimentation with his stringing could have slightly affected his feel on the ball for a little while, even though he went back to his old stringing formation before Davis Cup.

Not the first time Andy has experimented with stringing - during the 2014 clay season he changed the strining pattern but went back to his usual pattern before grass because while he liked it for his ground strokes he didn't like it for his serve I seem to recall him saying at some point.

This hasn't been confirmed by Andy's management or anything, but it comes from stringers at tournaments who post online and are usually fairly reliable sources on the subject of racquets. The explanations I have read fit with the way he was stropping about over the racquets in Melbourne, fits with the fact that despite all the forehand work he did in the off-season something was off with his forehand for a while, and why he was seen on the practice court during the clay season with the new frames but in matches with the old ones, and why he was looking at the racquets so suspiciously when he went back to the new frames at Queens. Seems to have settled into the new frames now though, so presumably he's happy with the customisation now.

I seem to recall someone on here got one of Andy's smashed racquets at the O2 last Novemeber and posted some photos, gives you a better idea of what Andy plays with.

That was probably a much more waffle filled reply than anyone wanted!

Just Wow! leafie
I think it was our lovely Deb who got the racquet?? Or maybe it was Joe (Prodigy)??

[Thevalley]

Thanks  - really interesting stuff

[blueberryhill]

Great intro, thank you atl and Bevc 
Come on Andy