Expectations Management, by Andy Murray
The 20-year-old Scotsman Andy Murray was standing in the players' lounge after his 3-hour-and-37-minute, five-set win yesterday.
He was telling me about his spaghetti and steak dinner at an Italian place on the Upper East Side on 74th Street and how he visited the top of the Empire State Building, which was filled with other tourists.
I asked him if he had any particular goals for the Open.
"Nah, not really," he said, in a thick Scottish accent. "I've been hurt for the last four or five months with a wrist injury so I just wanna play well."
Then we started talking about his unranked third-round opponent, the Korean Hyung-Taik Lee.
"Yeah, I played him once before and I went 7-6 with him in the third,
so ..." He trailed off and then he made a sour face.
I was actually at the Murray-Hyung Taik Lee match. Anyway, it was going swell for Murray until the third, when Lee suddenly got the upper hand. Anyway, at the second changeover in the third set, Murray scanned the crowd for Brad Gilbert and exasperatedly asked, "What do I do?!! What's the key to beating this guy?!!!" Gilbert immediately fired back, pointing to his head and yelling, "The secret's in here, you dope! It's locked inside my cranium, and you can't have it because you missed this month's payment! Come up here and stuff some cash in my ears if you expect to save this match!"
It was something.