Murray won’t overlook Isner as hopes rise of long Wimbledon run

Andy Murray may be pain-free and showing glimpses of his vintage best but he is not setting any targets at Wimbledon this year.

Britain’s two-time former champion is through to the second round after defeating Australia’s James Duckworth in four sets late on Monday night.

Crucially, the Scot revealed afterwards that the stomach strain which hindered his preparations and forced him to miss Queen’s Club had cleared up.

Murray has not reached the second week at SW19 in five years and bigserving American 20th seed John Isner stands in the way of matching last year’s run to round three.

In 2017 Murray’s title defence was ended by Sam Querrey in the quarter-finals, when the hip injury that almost ended his career was beginning to take hold.

“Certainly I’m in a better place than I was last year when I played here,” said the 35-year-old.

“In terms of pain I’m certainly in a better place than I was in 2017 when I played here. But, yeah, I don’t know about having a deep run or not. I’ve got a pretty tricky match in the next round against Isner. I’ll need to be on it for that one if I want to get through it.”

Murray’s record against Isner, eight wins in eight meetings, means he should have nothing to fear today, other than another late-night finish on Centre Court. I played well against John in the past. I don’t think I’ve ever played him on grass before, so there will be different challenges,” he added.

“He’s played well here before. He was very close to making the final a few years ago. I’ll need to play really well and certainly return a bit better than I did on Monday.”

Meanwhile, Emma Raducanu is hoping to rediscover her grand slam efficiency at Wimbledon this year.

The 19-year-old famously did not drop a set through 10 matches at the US Open having also claimed three straightsets wins at Wimbledon.

Since then, though, Raducanu has found herself dragged into a number of long matches, and her opening-round victory over Alison Van Uytvanck was her first two-set match at a slam since the US Open final.

With her history of injury niggles and recent recovery from a side strain, avoiding staying on court too long could be crucial to Raducanu’s hopes of a good run, and she will be looking for more of the same against Caroline Garcia today.

“I think that it helps at slams that you get a day off in between,” said Raducanu. “There were some tough moments in the second set (against Van Uytvanck) physically, but I told myself, ‘Push through, if you win in two sets, then you don’t have to play three’. That’s the tactic.”

Emma Raducanu has found herself dragged into a number of long matches.