There should be no more glorious place than Wimbledon’s Centre Court on a sunlit June evening when you are a British tennis player.
You know the crowd wants you to win, you want to win, even those who profess ambivalence towards you know how much winning this title means. Then there is the winning itself. It is a terribly oppressive thing to do.
Andy Murray won for all sorts of reasons yesterday to reach the quarter-finals for a third consecutive year — the most fundamental of which was that he refused to counsel defeat. That tenet of his character epitomises him more than any other. Thus, he beat big Sam Querrey, of the United States, 7-5, 6-3, 6-4 and the manner of the achievement commanded utmost respect.
In essence, the match boiled down to two games. The first was the eleventh of the first set. Murray had allowed three set points to drift from his grasp in the ninth, Querrey held for 5-5 and three points went by in a blur of Murray errors and miscalculations.
It was here that the Scot’s pigheadedness kicked in. He saved the first break point with a forehand winner, the second with a regal backhand and Querrey, overanxious, took too much of a swing at a forehand, one of his finer shots, on the third. Consider that situation for a moment from Querrey’s standpoint; it is as if someone is whispering in your ear that this is not going to be your day. He promptly dropped serve and the set had gone.
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The second key game was the penultimate of the match and one that was worth the £65 they charge for admission to Centre Court on the second Monday. It was 4-4, with Querrey serving and Murray in one of those on-court trances, sticking superbly in the rallies, slicing and dicing and, at 30-all, making tracks to a cross-court volley by Querrey and contriving a remarkable backhand scoop down the line. Judy, his mother, was on her feet first.
Untypically, Murray netted a routine backhand on the next point. Querrey saved a second break point when his serve split the line and he secured an easy forehand; he saved a third with a backhand volley, but Murray gave himself a fourth chance.
This time a rolled forehand was so exquisite that the American did not even move for it. Murray was 30-15 down when serving for the match, but sent down an ace, followed by a 99mph second-serve ace (he registered a 65 per cent success rate on his second serve, which is something to hold on to). Querrey sucked up more air but a laboured forehand ended the match.
Murray had every reason to be proud. We were. This was tough, really tough, a match you expect to win, yet the opponent is a free-hitting 6ft 6in plank of Californian pine who has just won a title on grass at Queen’s and clobbers winners for fun. Murray’s game is superior, but superiority is not always a guarantee of success. We thought that England’s football team were superior to Germany’s and look at the folly of that presumption.
So we reach the last eight and Murray is in the mix. Tomorrow, he plays Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the No 10 seed from France, a fine player who has suddenly decided that he is a grass-court exponent. He spells danger but Murray ought to know how to handle him and his defeat by the Frenchman in the first round of the 2008 Australian Open, when he won the third set 6-0 and appeared to have everything going for him, remains a bruise.
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“I’m not going to play well for every minute of the tournament and you have to deal with those situations when they arrive,” Murray said. “The more matches you play, you understand that some days certain things won’t be going well and you have to deal with it.
“I did a lot more running today than in my first few matches and you have to accept that. I haven’t had any long matches, but I think winning every match in straight sets is irrelevant because at the end of the event Roger [Federer] and Rafa [Nadal] will be playing their best tennis, regardless of how many sets they have played. The quarter-finals is not new to me, I should not be uptight or nervous.”
At least he is there. For Andy Roddick, the sensation of being reminded of how close he was to winning the title last year will burn ever deeper into his psyche this morning. The brilliant line-up on last-16 day at Wimbledon meant that Roddick had to play on No 2 Court against Lu Yen-hsun, who is best known to British audiences for his singles victory over Murray in the first round of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
Not only did Lu become the first Asian man since Shuzo Matsuoka, of Japan, to reach the quarter-finals of a grand-slam tournament, here 15 years ago, he did it in a wondrous style, winning two tie-breaks on grass against one of the best servers in tennis and playing with belief and bravado when the rallies developed. The Taiwanese player’s final flourish, a forehand winner down the line, went to the heart of his performance and Novak Djokovic, the third seed, awaits tomorrow.
Poor Roddick. It is hard to imagine how he must feel in the aftermath of his 4-6, 7-6, 7-6, 6-7, 9-7 defeat and one wonders how much more heartbreak he must endure in these championships. Can he win another slam? Almost certainly not. Will he keep on trying? You bet your last cent he will. “This never gets easier,” the American said.
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For Lu, a novel experience, not only on the court but that he had to conduct his first interview in the All England Club’s main gallery. “I went set by set, set by set, until I was shaking hands and I win,” he said. Wonderful.
Men’s quarter-finals
(1) Roger Federer (Switz) v (12) Tomas Berdych (Cz)
(3) Novak Djokovic (Serbia) v Lu Yen-hsun (Taiwan) (10)
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (Fr) v (4) Andy Murray (GB) (6)
Robin Söderling (Swe) v (2) Rafael Nadal (Sp)