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Early this morning, Novak Djokovic finally won his second Grand Slam title – on the same court that he did it on 3 years ago.

Unfortunately, he may not receive the credit he deserves, as Andy Murray, for the 3rd time in a Grand Slam final, did not bring his A-game to the match.  This time, because Murray didn’t face Roger Federer, he’s going to finally come under criticism for his collapses on the biggest stage.

Really, it’s not a fair assessment.  The first set was a true battle, and Djokovic took away any self-belief Murray might have had coming in by being an unbeatable wall on the baseline.

Murray admitted as much during his press conference after the match: “He defended unbelievably well tonight, so when I got ahead in some games, and even in some points, he was sticking up lobs that were landing on the baseline, passing shots that were very close to the line, so it was quite difficult to find parts of the court where I was getting free points from… I was trying to find a way.”

Truly, there was nothing Murray could do to get the ball past him, and as the match wore on, the thought cemented itself in Murray’s head and he made more mistakes because of it.

Murray lost that first set 6-4, and went on to lose the next two 6-2, and 6-3.

Djokovic, graceful in accepting his trophy, wished Murray luck in the future: “Hopefully you will have another chance to win Grand Slams, I’m sure with your talent, you will.”

ESPN analyst, Brad Gilbert, had a bold prediction afterwards: “To me, Novak Djokovic is not the same guy that won here in 2008, he will be at the end of 2011, in the top two in the world, and I think he will win another major in 2011.”

While it’s easy to say that now, following Djokovic’s dominating performance in the tournament, don’t forget that Gilbert predicted Murray to win this match.  It certainly would be impressive if he had seen this coming ahead of time.

-to see our prognostications for the contenders in Men’s tennis for 2011, click here