Kylelearn fromthis
KYLE EDMUND has vowed to learn from his Centre Court defeat after he was overpowered 7-6 (7/1) 6-4 6-4 by Gael Monfils of France.
Edmund was trying to join Andy Murray, Jo Konta, Heather Watson and Aljaz Bedene to make it a famous five Brits in third round for the first time in 20 years.
But the British No.2 said: “I didn’t enjoy the loss but I enjoyed the experience. It was a great match to learn from. I just a lack a bit of maturity at this stage.” ANDY MURRAY turned 30 on May 15 and the very next day he was given his birthday dumps by Fabio Fognini – gifted with a thumping on a clay court in Rome.
It was a straight-sets beating that was so one-sided it didn’t just blow the candles out on his cake, it added fuel to a slow burner of a fire which has been smouldering around the Scot’s ears for most of 2017.
The suggestion – and how Murray hates to hear it said – is that his best tennis might already be behind him.
That his glory run in 2016, which saw him claim a second Wimbledon title and Olympic gold on the way to becoming world No.1, will soon be regarded as the pinnacle of his career, that his body is beginning to break down, that it’s all downhill from here.
Well today, here on the manicured lawns of the All England Club, Murray will come face to face with Italy’s Fognini once more.
And it feels for all the world as if Dunblane’s sporting phenomenon is going into this third-round tie with a heavy hitting point to prove after hearing so many rumours of his own demise.
When asked yesterday – the day after his highly-impressive walloping of Dustin Brown on Centre Court – if he has been using this constant chatter as a source of motivation, Murray nodded and said: “I think it needs to be a little bit of both – well it does for me anyway.
“Throughout the course of a year you need to have the motivation yourself to want to be the best or to want to win tournaments. You have to want to train hard and all those things.
“But there are different stages in the year where someone says that you can’t do something the way you used to do it, or people think that you’re struggling or you might be coming towards the end.
“I’ve been getting asked that a lot lately, just because I said one thing about potentially not competing at the top of the game for so much longer.
“People ask if I’m thinking about retiring, or how many more years I’m going to play. Am I starting to slip a little bit? All those things can help at different stages.
“Like before the French Open I was told I was in a ‘terrible place’ in terms of my game and that I was not playing well. Having that little bit of extra motivation can help.”
Murray’s showing in Paris, reaching the semi-finals before being pipped in a five-set epic by Stan Wawrinka, came as a pleasant surprise after a somewhat ropey start to the year. But right here, in SW19, this is where it’s really at.
And despite a nagging worry over his stiff right hip, Murray appears to moving smoothly up through the gears with Fognini next on his horizon.
The Scot spent a gruelling 90 minutes on his favourite practice court yesterday at lunchtime as the mercury tickled 31 degrees.
His limp, while still evident, was a lot less pronounced than it had been ahead of his demolition job on Brown.
In fact, the mood was so relaxed around his camp that coach Ivan Lendl spent some of the session fretting less about Murray’s physical condition than he did about Brown’s quite remarkable dreadlocks.
“He told me it weighs six pounds,” Lendl said during a short break. “Can you imagine how long it must take to wash?”
Murray, meanwhile, was busy thrashing balls across the net at hitting partner Jay Clarke. And, during one drill, when the youngster failed to work the world No.1 hard enough for Lendl’s liking, the coach growled and said: “You’re being too kind on him Jay, move him around a little!”
When Murray enquired as to how much longer this lung-bursting routine might go on, the stoney-faced Lendl replied dryly: “Until you are out of breath.”
No, this is not a team showing any signs of anxiety about the fitness of their star man. And Murray seems equally relaxed, even if he’s not quite telling the whole truth about his levels of discomfort.
“The thing is,” he says when asked if there might be an element of mind games afoot where his hip is concerned, “if you’re playing against one of the best players and if they are carrying a genuine injury, you’ll pick up on that fairly early in a match in an individual sport.
“Maybe you’ll not notice it right at the beginning but over a five-set match you’ll notice of there’s something that they aren’t