Wimbledon 2022: Murray masters Centre Court again: ‘My game is starting to feel better and better’

It was a familiar scene: Centre Court, fading light, but the fans still packed in and cheering every winning point from their main man, Andy Murray.

There may be nine British men in the singles draw at Wimbledon this year, with both Cam Norrie and Dan Evans among the seeds. But the unseeded former No1, former Wimbledon and Olympic champion Murray took the final spotlight on the first day of action, closing out the schedule on the main stage.

It has not only been his headline-making wins over more than 15 years that have endeared Murray to his fans—and he won his first two Masters titles and was runner-up at the US Open at the age of 21 in 2008.

It is not just that he rose to No1 for more than 40 weeks and elbowed his way to 14 Masters, three Major and two Olympic titles in an era of unprecedented dominance by three men: Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Those factors, of course, play a huge part in the affection that the home nation now feels for Murray.

But then there is the fight, the determination, the will to overcome more adversity than any athlete should: right wrist surgery in 2007; season-ending back surgery in September 2013; and of course repeated hip surgeries, the latest one resurfacing his hip with metal. He had, on that occasion, considered retirement, but made such a good recovery that he returned, slowly and steadily, with a Queen’s doubles title in 2019.

Then, even before the pandemic closed down tennis in 2020, he missed Australia with a pelvic injury, and missed Australia again last year because of Covid infection. A groin injury ended his clay season, but he finally made it back to Wimbledon 2021 to score his first wins here since 2017.

And nothing wins a Wimbledon crowd over more than a fighter, and the dedicated fans here know just what a fighter he continues to be. And that was on show in his first match this year, a four-setter that saw him lose the opening set, 4-6, to the Australian James Duckworth, himself playing after hip surgery.

It may have been a slow start, and that may have been due to the minor abdominal injury he picked up after reaching the final in Stuttgart. He had, after all, played just one tournament since the Miami Masters in March, bypassing most of clay, and now he had to abandon his usual warm-up event at Queen’s.

However, he assured the media after going on to win the match, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4, that all was now well:

“It felt fine today, to be honest. The last few days when I’ve been serving was fine. I went to get an ultrasound scan on Saturday after my practice just to see how it was progressing. It was all clear for the first time on the scans, which is really positive…

“Obviously I still need to take precautions and still do some rehab and protect it when I can. In the match today it was absolutely fine.”

Murray is now 35, and has always derived confidence from lots of match-play and intense training: his athleticism and speed underpinned that ability to live with the ‘big three’ to such a great extent. He is, for example, the only player with at least seven victories over all three of them.

And asked what he had lost during so many setbacks, he explained:

“There’s some things I’ve not been doing as well as I would have liked… My ball striking, my shots haven’t changed much. But I did for a number of years play really not much tennis. I think in 2016, I played something like 80-odd matches. In the five years after that, I think I played literally the same amount of matches in five years that I did in that one year.

“You can’t replace those matches. It’s so important to be in those situations, like key moments, 5-5, break points, playing consistently against top players and winning against them. You can’t replace that.

“I missed a lot of that in the last four or five years. It’s only been really this year and the end part of last year where I was in good enough shape to compete regularly on the tour. Now that I’ve been competing regularly, I got a good training block between Miami and the grass season, my game is starting to feel better and better. Hopefully that continues through this year.”

He will have to recover from that late finish under the lights last night to prepare for a familiar and very different foe, the towering John Isner. The 37-year-old American, standing at 6ft 10ins, has perhaps the best serve on the men’s tour. And he came through a typically big-hitting win over qualifier Enzo Couacaud, 6-7(6), 7-6(3), 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 to set a ninth meeting with Murray.

It will be their first in six years, but Murray should be confident in his ability to advance again: He has beaten the No20 seed Isner in all eight meetings.

After Norrie joined Murray in the second round yesterday, it is the turn of Evans, Paul Jubb—against Nick Kyrgios—and Eastbourne semi-finalist Jack Draper. Ryan Peniston’s postponed day-one match against Henri Laaksonen would be first off the mark.