Andy Murray Back in Superstar Form with 2015 Australian Open Final Berth

Whatever you do, don’t talk to Andy Murray during a changeover. Don’t say hello. Don’t taunt. Don’t heckle. Just don’t do it.

Tomas Berdych, the No. 7 seed, had just won the first set, 7-6, in a grueling 76 minutes in the 2015 Australian Open semifinal. Berdych muttered something to Murray. Murray, in a sense, was a sleeping dog, a Scottish terrier.

Berdych poked him and felt the wrath, the snarls, the growls, the yells of Murray, back and better than ever.

But it wasn’t that long ago that it appeared Murray would not be, pardon the pun, back.

“I was really concerned about him toward the end of last year,” Patrick McEnroe, former professional player and ESPN analyst, said during the television broadcast. “I wasn’t sure he could get back to this type of situation and he’s done it very quickly. That bodes well for this tournament and certainly the rest of this year.”

The Roger Federers and Rafael Nadals are about as rare as they come. They’re once-in-a-generation-type players who just happened to be in the same generation. Between them, they have won 32 Grand Slams since 2003. That’s 62 percent of all Grand Slams over the past 12 years.

Throw in Novak Djokovic’s seven titles and three players in a decade-plus have won 75 percent of the Grand Slams.

All this is to illustrate that Murray’s relative flash in the pan of winning two Grand Slams on two different continents and reaching a total of seven finals is quite a career. He lost the lottery by being born around the same time as Federer, Nadal and Djokovic.

Throw onto that smoldering dung heap that he needed back surgery at the end of the 2013 season and there was every reason to believe that Murray’s best tennis—and any chance at another Grand Slam—were distant history and no longer a future possibility.

“Last year was a very tough year for me coming off the back surgery and then trying to find my game again,” Murray told ESPN’s Tom Rinaldi during Thursday’s post-match interview. “I was struggling for confidence last year. The offseason I had just now was fantastic. I built my confidence up again and worked on a bunch of things in my game.”

The 2014 Grand Slam scorecard for Murray looks OK, especially for someone coming off major surgery. He reached the quarterfinals in each major and even made the semifinals at the French Open. He was tentative. His back was shy to express the full athletic explosion and torque needed to play elite tennis.

So like a receding tide, it appeared Murray had already found the limits of his abilities and that they had taken them as far as he would ever go.

And in the middle of all that, with a back that had yet to earn Murray’s confidence, he leaves his coach, Ivan Lendl—who Murray won Wimbledon and the U.S. Open with—in favour of Amelie Mauresmo, the 2006 Australian Open champion and former world No. 1.

Vincent Thian/Associated Press

“When he named a female to be his coach that was a huge story,” McEnroe said during the ESPN broadcast. “He wanted to make a point by doing that. A lot of people wondered if this could be really work. Credit to him, credit to her because she took a lot of heat for taking this on and lo and behold look what’s happened.”

Murray hired Mauresmo in March of 2014, after the Australian Open, but a few months before the French. She shared some of the coaching with Dani Vallverdu. With Vallverdu out (and working with Berdych), it was Mauresmo’s show, and Mauresmo’s player to mold in 2015.

ESPN’s Brad Gilbert, who once coached Murray, said during the broadcast, “The way I saw her running practice working on nothing but hitting short forehands and attacking the ball, I think she wants him to play more aggressively. But she’s not digging at him. She’s doing it nicely. He likes that.”

Mark Baker/Associated Press

So when Murray lost that grueling first set to Berdych and Berdych said something to him, a fire ignited. Murray bageled Berdych in the second set, 6-0. He handled him again in the third set, 6-3. Murray broke Berdych at 5-5 to serve for the match.

Powerful serves forced Berdych’s shots long and then Murray delivered a laser down the T to reach the final at the Australian Open for the third time. Murray pumped his fists and pointed over to his box where, standing there and applauding, was Mauresmo, who CPRed Murray—and his game—from the long goodbye.

“A lot of people criticized me for working with her,” Murray said in his on-court interview. “So far this week we’ve shown that women can be good coaches as well. It was a brave choice for her to do it and hopefully I can repay her in a few days.”

Novak Djokovic or Stan Wawrinka better be ready. Murray is 2-2 against Djokovic in Grand Slam finals and 8-2 against Wawrinka on hard courts.

Murray is back in the top four, the big four, and he’s taking no prisoners, this on an island made famous for law breakers from the United Kingdom.