It’swonderfulto haveouroldpal backinthezone
KEITH JACKSON
LET’S be brutally honest.
For an excruciatingly awkward hour or so on Monday evening it all felt a bit manufactured. A bit too polite. Maybe even a little bit too much like hard work.
In fact, if truth be told, when Andy Murray was welcomed back onto Centre Court to take on Aussie no-hoper James Duckworth it was like being reunited with an old pal only for the penny to drop that hanging around with him down the pub isn’t half as much fun as it used to be.
Yes, the Pimm’s brigade sang their little ‘Let’s Go Andy’ song and although it remains as much of a threat to the blood pressure as it ever was, this insufferable chanting was also unmistakably half-hearted in its delivery.
A bit like Murray’s first serve for that matter.
No, this was not the Murray they and we have yearned to be around for so long. But then time waits for no man.
Yet the feeling remains that Murray might have something extraordinary left in his locker, even if he’s spent much of the last decade battling back against a litany of injuries which ought to have forced him into retirement.
And yet there he was on Monday evening, doing nothing much more than going through the motions against a player who, in normal circumstances, would be lucky to get a ticket for the most hallowed court in tennis, never mind a game on it.
By the time Duckworth had claimed the first set it began to feel as if fuzzy memories of a previous Murray might be all there is left to cling on to.
But then something clicked deep inside the 35-year-old as he sloped back to his seat amid a flurry of trademark Murray mutterings. And, delightfully, it wasn’t his metal hip.
No, somewhere deep in the darkest recesses of his own memory banks, Murray remembered what he was meant to be doing out there in the first place.
And when it all came rushing back, Duckworth didn’t stand a chance.
Murray began the recovery process by sorting out his first serve, increasing the accuracy and peppering the extremities of
his opponent’s box. This would be no great surprise to anyone who has ever been lucky enough to watch him up close on the practice grounds of the immaculate All England Club.
The magic in his hands remains as strong as ever. It’s only a question now of his movement and ability to cover the court.
As that returned, Murray began to open his shoulders and zing passing shots and winners down the other end. At one point Duckworth was reduced to puffing out his cheeks as if he would rather be on the next Qantas flight out of terminal five than being taken apart by this onslaught.
The Murray we know and love was back in his zone. It remains to be seen how long this bubble will last.
John Isner will certainly attempt to puncture it today and the American will provide a sterner examination of Murray’s miraculous powers of recovery.
But, at 37, Isner is no spring chicken. And Murray has defused his bombs plenty of times before, winning all eight of their previous head-to-heads.
Who knows? It might be a hasty mistake to write off our old pal just yet.