LONDON -- Milos Raonic knocked out Roger Federer on his way to the Wimbledon final and had been crashing down serves at more than 140mph.
The great John McEnroe, in the 25-year-old's coaching corner, had his confidence flowing, too, and Andy Murray had a fight on his hands on Centre Court on Sunday.
This was how the world No.2 took care of the talented Candian's strengths and proved himself a great champion:
Serving style
Murray usually tells it pretty much as it is, but when he said: "I served very well and knew I'd have to," he was being modest with the first part of his statement.
He had won only 67 percent of his first-serve points in his previous 10 Grand Slam finals. As the graphic shows, he won 86 percent against Raonic. Even more remarkably, he only lost one point in the entire match when his first serve was hit to the forehand, the No. 6-seed's strength.
The Briton did this predominantly by directing his serve down the Centre Court T, especially on the advantage court, making Raonic's returns more predictable and improving his chances of dictating the subsequent rallies.
He lost only four points in this area in total and hit five of his eight aces there.
Court coverage
Murray has developed a great deal over the last few years as an aggressive player and is known now for the attacking positions he takes up on the court, particularly on his opponents' second serve.
He is also known as one of the fittest players on the tour, and the heat map shows that he took a central position on the baseline most of the time, trying to dictate from there.
Sitting in the middle of the court, the graphic shows he was well-placed to cover the court when he had to; he ran a total of 2,367 metres in the match.
Both players' refusal to give up even the slightest chance of making a return was a noticeable feature of the match, and some of the Raonic smashes Murray was able to track down were particularly impressive.
Brilliant backhand
Murray sprayed the ball around superbly with his backhand throughout the final, producing some world-class passing shots.
As the graphic above shows, he preferred to hit it cross-court most of the time, but went down the line enough to keep Raonic guessing.
The match statistics tell the story on their own: Murray hit 15 winners on his backhand to the 3 of his opponent. He wasn't bad on his forehand, either, making only one unforced error on that shot to the Canadian's 13.