Murray has now won 6 Masters Series (now the "ATP World Tour Masters 1000" events) titles. Among the 18 players who won 3 or more Masters, only Marcelo Rios, Andrei Medvedev, and Thomas Enqvist ended up not winning a Grand Slam champion. (There is one other active player, Nicholay Davydenko, who won 3 Masters so far, but hasn't ever played a major final.) The statistics seems to suggest that Murray should be able to win a Grand Slam title, sooner or later. But statistics can be deceptive. Researchers should always pay attention to the "structural change", i.e. a threat to the comparativity of data across time and space. Prior to 2007, the Masters has "best-of-five-sets" final, after that, best-of-three-sets. All 5 Ws of Murry came in the "best-of-three-sets". It doesn't make a huge difference as all previous rounds in Masters were, and are, "best-of-three-sets". But I would argue that, finals are after all different. Winning a "best-of-five-sets" final means differently than a three-setter. Think about Rafa vs Roger Miami 2005. I totally believe that Murray can win a major. It is just that it is not at all automatic that 6 Masters Ws translate to even one Grand Slam victory.
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China Open has long expressed his ambition to become the 5th Slam. But the biggest optimist will be disheartened seeing the empty seats in the Center Court. The typical tennis audience in US/Europe--the middle-aged upper-middle class just don't have time and the enthusiasm for tennis.
But I found another thing. The majestic "Lotus" Court built for the Beijing Olympics is a light-hearted failure. It sits "north-south", a traditional rule for any "important" architecture. But a tennis court should NEVER be built "north-south", for the court will be half-shaded all day on any sunny day! I found it extremely annoying for players, and for TV broadcasters and viewers as well. Now the Chinese authority is considering building an even bigger 15000-seat white elephant, hopefully they will fix this obvious mistake this time.
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