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Murray's law

Andy Murray has not been at his best for much of this season © Getty Images

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• Profile: Andy Murray

Here's the thing with Andy Murray: Things are really good for him when things are really bad.

Take Thursday at the Western & Southern Financial Group Masters. Murray strolled out to play Ernests Gulbis, one of those guys who's just as dangerous as he is flaky, in a condition that Murray himself later described as not "acceptable."

Murray had failed to hydrate properly, even though he claims to be fully aware of the demands of his profession. For our purposes, those mandates at this time of year can be summed up in the command, "Drink, drink, drink." And we're not talking about alcoholic beverages here. We mean water, that commodity most precious to nut-job hikers wandering the Painted Desert and tennis players. Matches can last as long as three hours on skillet-hot hard courts, day after day.

On Thursday, Murray played his seventh match in nine days in sweltering heat, barely surviving the explosive game of Gulbis, 7-6 (4) in the third in more than two and a half hours. After the match he confessed that he was lucky to endure the conflict.

"I felt a bit dehydrated on the court, which isn't really acceptable," Murray said. "You should make sure you've already drunk enough before you go on. I've played seven matches in nine days, every one of them between 12:00 and 3:00, which is obviously when it's at its warmest. I think everybody would be feeling like that in my position."

This is Murray at his best -- and worst. We've been hanging around for about three years now, jingling the change in our pockets, whistling and talking about the weather -- killing time just waiting for Murray to win his first Grand Slam title. It hasn't happened yet. And for most of this year, it looked like it wasn't going to happen in 2010, either, which according to some variation of Murphy's Law (call it Murray's Law) is probably the time when it may finally happen.

This is a guy who reached the Australian Open final in January, but inexplicably lost his game in the championship match against Roger Federer. That loss appeared to send Murray into a petulant, perhaps self-pitying mood that lasted for months. He stank up the tour for months afterward, but rekindled hopes by surviving at Wimbledon until the semifinals. His loss there to the eventual champ, Rafael Nadal, can hardly be called disastrous, although his fan base in the United Kingdom has had quite enough of Wimbledon also-rans, thank you very much.

Murray proceeded to fire his coach, Miles Maclagan, shortly after Wimbledon, suggesting that he was in disarray. So what does Murray do? He goes it alone and gets to the final of the Farmers Classic in Los Angeles and wins the Rogers Cup (aka, Canadian Open) in his next two outings. Now he's dried out but slashing his way through the field in Cincinnati. No matter what happens, Murray will be heading into the U.S. Open with plenty of confidence and momentum.

Sometimes it seems that Murray is content carving out a nice living as the best guy never to win a major, but it's more likely that he's just making it up as he goes along, an individualist who colors outside the lines. That kind of explains why John McEnroe, that other unconventional talent, took a shine to Murray from the get-go.

Murray has had more than his share of trials this year, and suddenly they appear to have made him more rather than less dangerous. Call it Murray's Law, and define it at your peril.

This article first appeared on ESPN.com

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