Best supporting actor Andy

Winning here is a habit for Murray as he comes up trumps in the Twilight Zone

It was like old times, but it wasn’t. Sir Andy murray was on a show court at twilight and the crowd were hollering him on his way.

After 722 days, the old champion was back and winning at Wimbledon — the place he has excited and stressed out with his agonies and ecstasies over the roaring years.

Back with his bionic right hip, the 32-year-old was not cast in the starring role — Rafa Nadal and the Australian punk Nick Kyrgios were fighting it out for that honour next door on Centre Court — but the very sight of murray lifted the hearts of the faithful as they gathered for a little homage at a touch after 6.30pm.

murray was playing in the doubles with Frenchman Pierrehugues herbert against marius Copil and Ugo humbert.

It was not entirely plain sailing for the freshly-minted pair. they were struggling for early rhythm and lost the first set.

they took time to gel, although the crowd played fair with them. they tolerated the fluffed shots and cheered the successes, which

grew in number as the match wore on.

the All england Club had not seen murray since he lost to Sam Querrey here two years ago. And then came all the tears and the surgery.

Don’t forget, it was only in Australia back in January that murray wondered whether his playing days were over.

he could not sit, let alone walk, without feeling the pain of his condition.

But here he was in a white cap, prowling the grass he once commanded. It would be a lie to say the atmosphere was electric from start to finish. Doubles lacks the mano-a-mano intensity of the fight his body was not ready to take on — the singles next door.

there is an anonymity to doubles and that is more starkly apparent when you are murray and you have made a living wearing the pressure on your own sleeve.

After losing that first set, murray and herbert came back strong, breaking early in the second and really never looked back.

From then on they found their confidence and prospered — taking the next two sets before the darkening night called for the roof to be moved into place.

But for the £175million addition, there would have been no further play on Court 1 last evening. But, after a brief interlude, on we went. murray and herbert broke in the first game of the fourth and final set.

murray moved freely throughout, showing no sign of the pains and pangs that have tormented him.

herbert, in particular, began to show why he was the class of this quartet as a doubles player and his partner looked very happy to be along for the ride.

murray and herbert will play Croatian sixth seeds Nikola mektic and Franko Skugor next, with murray’s older brother Jamie and fellow Briton Neal Skuspki potential third-round opponents.

Jamie murray will resume his doubles match with Skupski today, leading two sets to one against Ivan Dodig and Filip Polasek, after bad light stopped play last night.

Andy murray, who praised the ‘nice’ atmosphere under the new roof, said afterwards: ‘I was a bit nervous at first, but we were more of a team as time went on. It came to us naturally.’

there were a few empty seats out there — low hundreds of them, at an estimate — so this was not peak murray mania.

that may build over the next fortnight if he ends up playing 12 matches to get to the finals of both the men’s and mixed doubles.

his mixed doubles entry comes today with Serena Williams and that will be fun.

And so it was as murray accepted his victory applause under the lights at 9.23pm.

he took off his cap and saluted the crowd. the hero murray has returned.