The moment of truth has arrived for Andy Murray. The second week of a grand-slam championship invariably sharpens focus and if the Scot is to halt a slide in which he has fallen to No 9 in the world, it has to start today.
With no triumph over a top-ten player to his name since the Wimbledon final last year, his fourth-round encounter against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the No 9 seed from France, takes on added significance.
If the hoodoo that has stretched to seven matches can be brought to a close, Murray will look forward to a quarter-final, most likely against an imperious-looking Novak Djokovic, with a belief and confidence that anything can happen from hereon in.
There have been enough glimpses in the previous three rounds to suggest that the 27-year-old Scot is approaching his best. His 6-1, 7-5, 4-6, 6-2 win over Andrej Kuznetsov, the world No 96, on Saturday certainly scored a B+ at least.
For the first two sets Murray served strongly, particularly on his second serve, and approached the net frequently with impressive results — he won 29 of 33 points when rampaging forward. The blip, and there have been many in recent months, came in the fourth set, a mixture of the tricky Russian finding his feet and Murray dipping below the level attained in the opening exchanges. It did not last as Murray’s superiority finally told.
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The fear, however, is that a player of Tsonga’s quality, not to mention Djokovic’s, would have made him pay a much more severe price. When the pair last met in Toronto before arriving in New York, the Scot was 3-0 up in the final set but somehow contrived to lose the match to the in-form yet often flaky Frenchman, who proceeded to win the tournament.
Tsonga’s power game matches up well to that of Murray’s who, if everything clicks into motion and the horrors of last Monday’s cramping episode fail to reappear, the US Open champion of 2012 should be able to outlast the 29-year-old over five sets.
It all depends, however, which Murray turns up. “I am feeling good and once you get into the second week of a slam, it’s four matches away from winning it. Obviously they are going to get tougher with each round but, you know, if you feel good physically, anything can happen,” he said. “You just need to be ready each match now, and I’ll hopefully play some good tennis.”
The dramatic nature of Murray’s grand-slam campaigns, the undulating, uncertain moments when tables are turned at the blink of an eye, continue to be a constant narrative. Yet he remains unperturbed. “It’s better almost not to think about it too much, because I’ve obviously played 500 or 600 matches in my career and you’re going to have moments when certain things are hard,” he said.
“There’s periods where some players struggle to serve out matches, sometimes it can be struggling to come back from tough situations, sometimes it can be struggling to stay ahead or sort of having ups and downs in matches. You’re going to go through that in an 800, 900-match career.
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“You’ve just got to keep doing the right things, keep going for your shots, keep making good decisions. That’s all you can do, really. Sometimes guys can start playing well, often people don’t like to give credit when a guy is playing some good tennis as well.
“You just need to hit the reset buttons as quickly as possible so it doesn’t last for two or three games.”
While it is a vital few days for Murray, the same can be said for Amélie Mauresmo, his coach, who will also need to be at the top of her game to ensure her new charge prospers.
Murray continues to warn that judgments on their partnership must not be made until the start of next year. After all, when Ivan Lendl was taken on board by Team Murray in December 2011, it was not until the next September, here at Flushing Meadows, that important missions began to be accomplished.
Nevertheless, the Scot is said to be enjoying the input of Mauresmo, 35, particularly the ease with which the lines of communication are always open, something that was not the case when Lendl was in charge.
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There is a school of thought that, rightly, argues that having someone of stern authority in charge is just what a mercurial talent such as Murray needs to thrive. For now though, Mauresmo is impressing him.
“At the beginning it was definitely different, not necessarily because she is a woman,” he said. “When I started working with Ivan it was the same, he is a different person, a different personality, different character for everyone to get to know and feel comfortable around.
“She fitted into the team very well. It hasn’t changed anyone’s personality or how we behave, but it’s changed things in terms of how we communicate. I have said that it is much easier to communicate with her and that is a positive.
“I think it takes five, six months before you can really change much. I would hope you’d start to see some changes, things I’m trying to work on, really improving by the Australian Open in January. But there’s no reason why I can’t have good results right now and she can’t influence things right now.”
Today would be a fine starting point.