With the no-show of Rafael Nadal, the first-day British blues, yesterday’s withdrawals of Ga?l Monfils and Marat Safin, the Tube strike and the push and shove in the Queen’s Club marquees, something was required to restore a semblance of calm to the AEGON Championships.
Enter Andy Murray. A week on from his loss in the quarter-finals of the French Open, the British No 1 felt the surge of the competitive juices again and his 59-minute reintroduction to the niceties of grass-court tennis was gentle and unflustered.
The last time he played Andreas Seppi on grass, the conditions were similar, a brisk wind and slate-grey skies, in the Nottingham Open three years ago and Seppi won in three sets. He was ranked No 72 then, Murray No 45. Today, Seppi is No 48 and Murray the best player in the world competing this week.
Murray triumphed 6-1, 6-4 and it was not until the Italian trailed 2-0 in the second set that he appeared interested in competing for his corn. By that time, Murray had unfurled most of the shots of which he is capable, including a delightful backhand lob into the wind that landed just inside the baseline and spun sideways. C?dric Mourier, the French umpire, intoned “ler-erv-thir-ir-ty” with a decided tone of admiration.
Much admiration came from the clubhouse patrons as well, for if Murray is on song, chipping, slicing, drop-shotting and generally moving his opponent around at will, there are few better means of being warmed on a draughty day. He may never quite tug Queen’s heartstrings as Tim Henman used to, but he is growing on them. They will be cheering his name next, and it almost came to that when he moved to match point. The rally was developing along the lines of many, tempting sliced backhands from Murray to the rolled double-hander from Seppi, the ball’s trajectory lowering with each shot when the Scot suddenly darted up the court and swept a forehand into the opposite corner. Clearly, the past few days on grass have been put to good use.
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“There is basically one week to [prepare for Wimbledon],” Murray said. “Very few guys that feel they’re going to compete for the title play the week before. Next week, I can’t see myself playing. I’d prefer to stay close to Wimbledon and practise there.
“Ideally I’d like to play a few matches in this tournament but if not, that is the way it goes. There are six weeks to prepare for the French on clay — this is very different.”
His hope is that he will have a match a day until Sunday and today’s opposition is provided by Guillermo García-L?pez, a Spaniard with no grass-court pedigree, so he should have three matches at least in the tank.
There was a late-night twist in the tale when Ken Skupski and Colin Fleming combined to produce a doubles result as significant as any in Britain’s recent history.
Skupski went to college in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Fleming in Stirling, Scotland and whatever was on the tennis curriculum, they must have paid avid attention, for they defeated Bob and Mike Bryan, the multiple grand-slam champions and former world No 1 team, 6-4, 6-4.
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Fleming had raced to Queen’s having won his first-round qualifying singles encounter for Wimbledon in the morning and must go through the same rigmarole today.
Skupski, from Liverpool, said: “You watch TV when you’re young and see the Bryan brothers and you think, ‘Wow, I’d love to be playing against them but at that level.’ I’m speechless to be honest with you. Now we’ve got a job to do tomorrow [in the last eight]. When I hit my first second serve of the match and they nearly took Colin’s head off at the net, that opened my eyes as to what to expect. But once we made a couple of big returns, it put them on the back foot.”