MURRAY MARCHES ON
WIMBLEDON 2014
ENTERING the charts of Andy Murray’s most convincing wins in his Grand Slam career, straight into the top three, goes Blaz Rola. The defending champion was utterly ruthless in trouncing the 23-year- old Slovenian in just 84 minutes to reach the third round and put himself on track, you would expect, for the second week.
Murray’s next opponent will be Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut, the world No 23, and it is unlikely to be as straightforward as the exhibition put on for grateful Court One patrons in this unusual lunchtime spot.
Yet in this form Murray can be expected to progress, f or he asserted the kind of crushing superiority you so regularly see in early rounds from Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal.
The world No 5 does not possess the threshing machine mentality of his two main rivals, which often sees them reach the latter part of t ournaments with plenty in reserve.
Murray is aware of that and set his mind to schooling the standout player from the highly competitive American college circuit of last year, who will play much better than this with a few more outings on grass.
This was Murray’s easiest victory at Wimbledon, surpassing the first round of 2012 when he allowed Russia’s Nikolay Davydenko only six games.
Given that grass tends to offer more free points for the server than other surfaces, it is highly unusual that anyone i s cleaned up as comprehensively as poor Rola was yesterday.
A lot of it was about energy conservation and making this obligatory visit to Court One — it is only right that no player gets a season ticket on Centre Court — impressively brief.
Murray had a recent reminder of how important it is not to get bogged down in early rounds at the French Open where, slightly leg weary, he found himself on the wrong end of a severe tonking from Nadal in the semi-finals.
‘ I’m not saying I would have beaten Rafa but it cost me there, playing lots of long matches,’ he reflected.
‘Against Philipp Kohlschreiber (in the third round) I was up in every set and it eventually went to 12-10 in the fifth. So it’s important to get through these matches as quickly as possible.’
A good barometer of how straightforward a Murray match has been at Wimbledon is the type of questions he has to field afterwards: the more off-piste they are indicating just how comfortable a day it has been.
And so he was asked if was he pleased the Duchess of Cornwall had taken a diversion from the Royal Box to watch his match. Yes. What did he think of Luis Suarez biting Giorgio Chiellini? Unnatural behaviour. Pleased with Alan Stubbs’s appointment as Hibernian manager? Again, yes.
Is he concerned that LeBron James rejected a new contract with Miami Heat? It does not necessarily mean the team’s marquee player will be leaving.
Then there was the retelling of how he rescued a large dog from traffic after it has strayed on to the road near his Surrey home earlier in the week.
More connected to tennis was his view about whether another Slovenian, Aljaz Bedene, should be allowed to switch nationalities and play in the Davis Cup for Great Britain.
‘I don’t really mind,’ he said. ‘If he becomes a British citizen and is able to play then I see no reason why he shouldn’t be able to do it. I don’t make the rules.’
Having to answer diverse enquiries is an encouraging symptom for Murray, who was also questioned about how it is going with Amelie Mauresmo.
He reverted to his stock reply of ‘so far, so good’.
This certainly appears to be the case and if you talk to those within his camp they confirm that she has settled in very comfortably with the long-established group around him.
There were also some encouraging clues in his match, even though Rola found his natural timing difficult to come by on the grass when being fed so many types of different spins and angles by a master of the surface.
One good sign was that when the Slovenian created his three break points, one in each set, they were answered with strong first serves, two of them being aces.
You still fear that less awed players will do some damage to Murray’s second delivery but that was never really an issue in this match. The most animated the crowd got was when a ball fell out of the Scot’s pocket in the second set, causing the rally to be replayed — it was that kind of afternoon.