Andy Murray can break grand slam duck at US Open says John McEnroe

John McEnroe reckons Andy Murray is still "a legitimate contender" at Wimbledon but will probably have to wait until the US Open next year to win his first grand slam title. For a couple of reasons, it is a view worth listening to. McEnroe has established himself as the visiting voice of the summer behind the BBC microphone at the place where he won titles, applause and opprobrium three decades ago. His judgment of the game and its players remains uncanny. And he senses weirdly familiar anxiety in Murray, rated No4 in the world but with an ordinary run of form since losing to Roger Federer in the Australian Open in January. With the benefit of distance and maturity, does he see a bit of himself in the brilliant and intense Scot? "Absolutely," says our favourite 51-year-old but forever-young American rebel, fashionably dishevelled in jeans and laceless sneakers. It's gone 10am and the coffee is flowing as steadily as his quicksilver tongue. "I can totally relate to what he's going through. And he's got more pressure in a way, because he hasn't broken through yet. I sort of took it for granted. There is more anxiety in his case because of what goes on in Britain. Everyone wants it so bad. He has been going through this for years already. You have a legitimate contender. Each year it grows and it gets that much worse. "So, you would suspect if he gets through the first hurdle he could win another couple fairly quickly – but the first will be the sweetest. I would say it will come next year at the US Open. I can't imagine if things go well he won't put himself in the mix. Clay is a long shot. In Australia he still has a shot." McEnroe reckons the secret to Murray's coming of age at 23 is to do what he himself found almost impossible at 18: relax. "I had the same problem [of expectations]. But, because I do commentary and see it from the other side, I see what an advantage Wimbledon can be to lift the crowd and psyche out the other guy. But to do that is hard. I worried too much about the bad things that could happen as opposed to just knowing how good I was and sort of trusting myself. I would sort of think about what could go wrong." Anyone who has witnessed Murray's internal fight for confidence and direction over the past few months would appreciate that perspective. You do not have to embellish the mental image much, either, to recreate a picture of McEnroe floating across the grass with the same almost delicate athleticism that Murray brings to his tennis. And, like McEnroe, Murray struggles to pretend the game he plays so well is anything but a source of grinding grief and fleeting triumph. "I didn't enjoy it enough," McEnroe said. "I wish I had enjoyed it more. I enjoy it more now, but so what? I remember [Jimmy] Connors one year I lost at Wimbledon. He was supposedly going through a separation and he looked more fierce than ever! I fell apart if my girlfriend rang me and got pissed off. I was not able to brush it off." Few players suffered as publicly as McEnroe. The red headband seemed to tighten as if to contain his bursting brain when things went wrong, and he thinks Murray also finds it tough to keep his emotions under control. He might benefit, he says, from working the crowd, by letting his feelings flow. "In some cases when things are not going well," McEnroe says, "you can get down on yourself. You can feel you deserve to bring the crowd in, but they can know the game so well they don't feel they should come in. "But, if you can convince people at Wimbledon it is like the World Cup, then it will work for you. I don't know how you get to that stage. They know the game, they don't want to boo the opposition out of respect. But if they are cheering all the way through, it is like a game a set. I have seen Wimbledon when it has been pretty quiet." On this point, McEnroe might have miscalculated. Murray mirrors him in many ways, but he made it clear several weeks ago that he regarded the World Cup not so much as an inspiration but as a safety valve of national emotions, a distraction from his own pressures at Wimbledon. If England were to be in the World Cup quarter-finals the day before the men's singles were to be decided at Wimbledon, on 4 July, that would suit him fine – but not necessarily for the reasons McEnroe imagines. As one of nature's comfortable outsiders, it is something he maybe should have recognised.