Laurie's Tennis articles

Andy Murray conquered years of questions and self-doubt to win his first US Open title.   Caroline Wozniacki so far has chosen a different path to Murray and now appears to be regressing in her career.   Is it too late for Wozniacki to win a major title? After his first three major final losses and other disappointments, Murray accepted change was needed to his game mentally and tactically.   By appointing Ivan Lendl as coach, Murray showed to the world he was prepared to take tough decisions.   The memo is that Lendl first approached Murray’s representatives towards the end of 2011 with a view to working with Murray.   Not that it matters who approached whom as it was clear changes needed to be made to Murray’s game if he wanted to win a major title.   Since the appointment at the beginning of January, Murray’s game more or less looks the same but the changes are more subtle.    First of all, Murray has cut down markedly on t...

2012 has proven to be a great year for Angelique Kerber, Angelique is rapidly becoming a household name in the world of tennis, mainly due to her exciting performances and rise up the rankings, Angelique is now an established top 10 player on the WTA tour with a good chance of making the year end WTA championships in Istanbul.     Angelique won her first career title at the indoor event in Paris in February, and backed that up with a title two months later in Denmark defeating Caroline Wozniacki.   However, the win in Paris showed what Angelique is all about, defeating Maria Sharapova in straight sets in the quarterfinal and Marion Bartoli in a three set final thriller in front of an extremely raucous home crowd.    In reality, Angelique’s good run started well before 2012, twelve months ago at the 2011 edition of the US Open, Angelique came from nowhere to get to the semifinal, defeating players of the calibre of Agnieszka Radwanska and Flavia Pen...