Federer: Murray Was “Cooked” at Last Year’s World Tour Finals

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Federer: Murray Was “Cooked” at Last Year’s World Tour Finals

For those that are looking to Roger Federer and Andy Murray’s last meeting as a guide to how things might play out on Friday when the two grass-court titans play their Wimbledon men’s semifinal: it’s probably not the best idea.

Previewing Friday's Men's Singles Semifinals at Wimbledon

Federer himself admits that his 6-0, 6-1 drubbing of Murray at last year’s World Tour Finals came at a time when the Scot was out of petrol after putting his pedal to the metal for six weeks in a last-ditch attempt to qualify for London in 2014.

“I thought World Tour Finals, he came in tired,” Federer told reporters after his quarterfinal win over Gilles Simon on Wednesday. “You know, he had won three tournaments back to back to back. He left everything out there, making the World Tour Finals. I think when I played him, he was a bit cooked, to be honest. I played a great match, but it was not the Andy that usually comes up and shows up.”

The pair have not met since then, and Federer comes in with a three-match winning streak over Murray and a 12-11 advantage in their head-to-head.

The lopsided was taken more seriously by Murray, who has talked often about his frustration with how the media wanted to pin the blame on his then new coach Amelie Mauresmo . Instead of panicking, Murray says he used the loss as a springboard to find solutions to his problems against the game’s elite.

“A lot of people in my team, people around me, were very, very worried by that match,” he said. “I felt quite calm about it. It was obviously embarrassing, you know, the scoreline. But I kind of looked at the few weeks before then, the matches also that I played at the O2, the matches I played against Novak over that period as well, kind of assessed it and said, ‘Where am I going wrong against the top guys and what is it that I need to do to get back to that level competing with them?’ I dealt with it that way and tried to be rational about it. Came back and played some extremely good tennis at the beginning of the year in Australia. So it was a tough loss, for sure. But I tried to deal with it in the right way.”

Federer and Murray have split their two previous meetings on grass, with Federer winning in the 2012 Wimbledon final and Murray winning in the 2012 Olympic Gold Medal match. Both were played at Wimbledon’s Centre Court. Federer leads Murray 4-1 lifetime in majors and 5-1 on British soil, but he knows Friday is one of the rare times where he won’t be the crowd favorite in a match at a Slam.

“I just hope the crowd gets into it and enjoys a good match and that we can play well,” Federer said. “I have received a lot of crowd support over the years, and so has Andy. So it really probably depends a little bit on who is in the crowd there that day and who they prefer to win. But they're always very friendly and fair.”

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