Murray wins as tennis returns
british star shows who is in charge with straight-sets win bulked-up Edmund powers past Ward with fastest serve
As Britain’s elite players returned to the match court for the first time since February – or even longer, in Andy Murray’s case – it was hardly surprising to hear the underrated left-hander Liam Broady exclaim: “There’s been some sporadic tennis, to say the least.”
In the headline match of the first day of the Schroders Battle of the Brits, Murray overcame Broady 6-2, 6-2 without ever quite finding his rhythm. “What I’m doing now is working,” he told the TV commentary team in a mid-match interview. “But I’m not playing great.”
This was never going to be a spectacle to rank alongside Murray’s finest moments on the Centre Court of Wimbledon. The stage was a nondescript practice court at the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton, with heavy black curtains drawn on both sides to prevent balls escaping.
The important thing is that Murray was back in action. And there was still one astonishing moment when he flicked a half-volley retrieval shot away for an acutely angled winner, running at full stretch with his back virtually to the net. It was a flashback to the days when his ingenuity and touch used to make him a favourite among tennis pur‘I wasn’t timing the ball. The courts are quite tight so I felt a bit rushed at times’ ists. He can conjure impossible shots out of the most unpromising positions.
Murray’s competitive fire has clearly not been doused by all his struggles with that recalcitrant right hip.
At one wobbly moment in the first set, he yelled “big serve” at himself – and then lived up to his own instructions by banging down a service winner. At the end, he gave a leonine roar, clenched a fist, and then managed to sound typically miserable during his on-court interview with host Marcus Buckland.
“It was OK,” Murray said. “I served well throughout the match, but didn’t hit the ball well from the back of the court. There were some errors and I wasn’t timing the ball. I find it quite tricky here – the courts here are quite tight, so I felt a bit rushed at times.”
He was also asked when the last time he had picked up his own balls.
“Probably when I was 16 or 17 years old,” he replied. “So a long time ago. But we do pick some of our balls in practice.” Yesterday, he delegated his coach Jamie Delgado to act as an unofficial ballboy on his behalf.
Towards the end of that on-court interview, Buckland tried to make a little fun out of Murray’s determination to play his prospects down, which extended before the event to inventing an abdominal injury to discombobulate the other players on the tournament Whatsapp group. At least, that was the story relayed by Broady at the pretournament media day.
But then Murray had removed himself from that Whatsapp group three days before the real business started. He has his game face on now. And he responded to Buckland’s comment about him having low expectations, saying: “Rightly so. I haven’t played many matches and I have had a lot of injuries.”
Earlier, both Dan Evans and Kyle Edmund had looked in fine form and fettle as they disposed of their respective opponents – Jay Clarke and James Ward – in straight sets. Edmund has reportedly added 4kg in muscle during lockdown, and he was comfortably the most powerful player on show, recording a 92mph top speed on his forehand and 131mph on his serve.
He will play Murray this evening in a match that Murray – inevitably – said he was not expecting to win. In the doubles, the man responsible for organising the Schroders Battle of the Brits – Jamie Murray – got off to a disappointing start in the day’s first match.
One suspects the effort of assembling this tournament must surely have distracted Murray the elder from his practice schedule.
Still, credit must go to the opposing duo of Broady and Cameron Norrie, who repeatedly put their returns on to the shoelaces of the onrushing server. Murray and his partner Neal Skupski missed out by the finest of margins, 11-9 in the deciding super tie-break.
The Telegraph Media Group is donating £25 to NHS Charities Together for every ace hit at the Schroders Battle of The Brits