How Sam Querrey managed to upset Andy Murray at Wimbledon

American Sam Querrey used a big serve and a lot of topspin to take down Wimbledon favorite Andy Murray.

Two of the four favorites for Wimbledon 2017 have now gone down in five sets. Yesterday, Gilles Muller stole two sets early from Rafael Nadal and went on to win a thrilling fifth set by a score of 15-13, securing a place in the quarterfinal over the French Open winner. Today it was home favorite defending champion Andy Murray falling, with hard-hitting American Sam Querrey taking down the Brit in five.

Querrey, a John Isner-type server, is the first American male in eight years to make a Grand Slam semifinal. He did it with his massive line-painting serves, increasing consistency on Murray’s tricky low-flying baseline shots and efficiency at the net not usually seen from the 29-year-old. It was a career-defining performance from a player who has not been able to crack tennis’s top-tier despite one of the tour’s best serves, although it was a match marred slightly by a lingering hip injury that often hobbled Murray.

A tough draw awaited Querrey in this year’s Wimbledon. The round of 32 pitted him against 12th-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, a match Querrey won in five sets, and then he had to face his almost exact counterpart, South African Kevin Anderson, in the round of 16. He won that in five sets too.

It didn’t look promising early on against Murray. He looked nervous at the very beginning, missing a few serves and committing five unforced errors en route to a 3-0 deficit. Understandable considering he was playing on centre court at Wimbledon against Murray, but it didn’t bode especially well for the future games.

While Querrey dominated on serve for the rest of the first set, his return of serve never caught on and Murray breezed to a 6-3 win. All of the Brit’s grass court talent was on display: low approach shots that barely skimmed the ground, deadly drop shots capitalizing on Querrey’s lack of mobility and well-placed backhands that hit every part of the court. In conjunction with a lot of Querrey backhand misses, it resulted in a relatively easy Murray set win.

All signs pointed to more results like that one going into the second set. This didn’t happen, though, as Querrey got off to a good start on serve and started frustrating an increasingly-out-of-sync Murray. The American was broken in the middle of the set, but immediately came back and broke his opponent to make it 4-4, with Murray looking as angry on the court as we’ve seen him. The announcers even proclaimed “self-flagellation on centre court.”

Querrey would win the set 6-4, on the back of two breaks. He had clearly found his mojo after a nervous first set, in particular looking much better on return of serve; he was aggressive returning Murray’s spin-heavy serves and often was able to create winner opportunities on deep backhand returns. Net approaches became more common, and while Murray’s world-class lobs and incredible wrist shots were able to defeat him a couple of times, Querrey was nonetheless able to win just enough return points to surprise everyone and force a re-set at 1-1.

The third set saw the underdog drop serve early again, missing a golden opportunity to bury a clearly frustrated Murray. Querrey climbed back into the set later on, though, and even looked likely to take a 2-1 set lead before the defending champ found himself again and got it to 6-6, forcing a tiebreak. That is where Murray took over, with Querrey missing an easy overhead and a couple of first serves, allowing his opponent to take the tiebreak 7-4. Again, it looked like Murray would cruise from there.

Again, though, Querrey fought back. He took a quick 3-0 lead in the fourth set and had the hobbling Murray on the back-foot in front of his home crowd. From there, it was utter domination: 6-1 was the score of both the fourth and the fifth set, in favor of Querrey. 

Everything was clicking for the American. He was hitting every location with his forehand and his backhand, finding that a looping, heavy topspin down-the-line forehand gave Murray trouble. The backhand that was targeted early in the match as his weakness now became a strength, and Murray had no place to hit the ball. Everything came back to Murray with a ton of topspin and directly on the line.

This is not even to mention his serve, which was really, really good. He put it all over the service box, most of the time hitting the line and forcing some desperate, mostly unsuccessful, challenges.

Not usually a serve and volley player due to the potency of his serve by itself and his height (6-foot-6), Querrey was chasing down every ball and finishing points at the net rather than relying on a blazing-yet-inconsistent baseline forehand, and that was what ultimately spelled the death of the mobile Murray, as comfortable flicking half-volleys at the service line as he is hitting topspin lobs from the baseline. He was beaten at his own game, to some extent, by a hard-hitting, heavy-serving, topspin master.

Of course, there’s the lingering detail of Murray’s injury, which had him wincing and limping more and more often as the match went on. He ended up not even moving as Querrey ripped aces in the last games of the fifth set.

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That injury, whatever the extent of it, should not take away from what very well could have been Querrey’s best career performance and biggest career win, including his third round Wimbledon upset of Novak Djokovic last year. He could be the one who is finally able to reverse disappointing trends from American male tennis players.