All tennis players face similar problems; more often than not, the difference between success and failure lies in the solutions they find. The singular conditions in Indian Wells, where the dry desert air makes the ball fly even as the slow surface and heavy Penn balls dampen its progress, only magnify this fascinating dimension of the sport.
The ability to adapt is crucial, yet it does not always come naturally. Experience helps, of course. Garbiñe Muguruza may have lost her opener against Ajla Tomljanovic, but the Spaniard showed real intelligence in the variety she introduced to her game after struggling to make her power tell in the initial stages of the match. The variety she displayed as she mixed her usual weight of shot with sliced forehands, drop shots and lobs took some by surprise – not least Tomljanovic, who lost both her rhythm and the second set before finding her feet again in the decider. Yet, at the top level of the game, all players have the ability to play such strokes; the art lies in knowing how and when to deploy them.
Few have a better appreciation of this balance than Andy Murray. In Carlos Alcaraz, the exciting young Spaniard whose unbridled power and accomplished all-court game carried him to the US Open quarter-finals last month, Murray faced an opponent 16 years his junior, with all the physical advantages such an age gap confers. Logic suggested that, in a contest that would eventually span more than three hours, against a player with a metal hip ranked 83 places below him, Alcaraz was the clear favourite. And when the teenager claimed the opening set after clawing his way back from 3-0 down, fending off a set point along the way, it seemed likely logic would prevail.
Murray, however, is a natural problem solver, and while his body may not be all that it once was, his brain is as sharp as ever. By the time he saved two break points to avoid falling 2-1 behind at the start of the second set, the former world No 1 had seen enough to know the situation required something a little different. Murray had landed 61% of his first serves in the opener, averaging 119mph, and been broken twice; now Alcaraz had retreated deep behind the baseline and was returning his serve with interest. And so Murray turned to a shot he has never previously used in 16 years as a professional, deploying an underarm serve that left Alcaraz flat-footed and bamboozled, bouncing away for an unlikely ace. Serve held, crisis averted.
“I’ve never done it on the tour before, said Murray after his 5-7, 6-3, 6-2 win. “The courts are so slow. Since Wimbledon, I’ve obviously made some improvements to my serve and was getting lots of free points, serving a lot of aces in the matches I played recently. I played for three hours today [and] served three aces in a long match, one of them being the underarm serve.
“If you look where he was standing at the beginning of the match to return the first serve in comparison to [the way] he changed that at the end of the first set, he started returning from further back, so it was even harder to get free points on the serve.
“I thought, ‘If he’s going to stand that far back, and I’m getting no love from the court and the conditions, why not try it and see if I can bring him forward a little bit again?’ I wasn’t expecting to get an ace out of it.
Given that Murray was forced to survive a marathon 11-minute game when he next stepped up to serve – not to mention a 10-minute hold immediately after breaking early in the decider – it would be an overstatement to suggest it was a match-changing moment. It was, however, the right shot at the right time, and a reminder that sharp thinking and the ability to adapt to circumstance can be just as important as a crushing serve or a firecracker forehand.
Murray’s wider tactical shrewdness underlined the point further. The Scot intensified his attack on the Alcaraz backhand after falling behind, preventing his opponent from unleashing the devastating forehand that is the bedrock of his game, and extended the rallies, daring the younger man to stay with him as he showcased his extensive repertoire of slices, drop shots and volleys. He even considered hitting another underarm serve, he revealed afterwards.
“I was thinking about using it at times in the third set, but [I was] obviously up in the score, was doing a little bit better, [and] didn’t feel like I needed to,” said Murray, who will seek to extend his unblemished record against Alexander Zverev, the third seed, in round three. “Certainly when guys are standing there to return serve now, it’s a smart play.”
In fairness, the conditions in Indian Wells afford ample opportunity for thinking. Iga Swiatek even found time to reflect on charitable concerns, spontaneously deciding midway through her 6-1, 6-0 victory over Veronika Kudermetova that she would mark World Mental Health Day by donating the prize money from her victory to a relevant cause.
“I’m not proud of it, but today in the second set I thought about that, because I was aware that this is World Mental Health Day,” said Swiatek, the second seed, who will play former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko in the third round. “I think Venus Williams inspired me a lot, because when I saw her statement and her initiative [to donate $2m to provide free therapy to the public], I mean, that was just so great.
“I thought that, even though I’m like 20 and I don’t feel like it’s time for me yet to start a foundation or something, because still I need to focus on tennis, I can do some smaller things and maybe just take it step by step, and just learn how to do this kind of stuff.”
Here too is a form of adaptability, the young slam winner seeking to come to terms with the wider social responsibilities that accompany her elevated status. It is an imperative with which Murray, a goodwill ambassador for Unicef since 2014, has long been familiar, and one which Alcaraz too will no doubt embrace in time. Champions have a habit of working these things out.