Murray’s hurry for a date with the Queen
BRITISH No1 Andy Murray admitted he was looking forward to his date with the Queen tomorrow after cruising through his first round match at Wimbledon.
The British No1 recovered from dropping his serve early on to ease past Czech Jan Hajek on a sweltering Court One.
It earned him a second round clash with Jarkko Nieminen, of
Finland, tomorrow – a match which, if played on Centre Court, will
be watched by the Queen on her first visit to the All England Club
since 1977.
“If I get on Centre, it’ll be great,” Murray said. “It’ll be an honour and a privilege.” He then joked: “A bow should be quite simple – but you never know, I might get a bit nervous and screw it up.”
Murray had every reason to be cheerful after a pain-free opening match, which brought no fewer than 18 aces, 56 winners and an 88 per cent first serve win percentage as he eased fears over his worrying form. “I haven’t played that many matches lately, so any win’s a good one. I’ll try and play better next round,” he added.
Unsurprisingly, Murray will be forced to fly the British flag alone in the second round after the four remaining Brits in both the men’s and women’s draw, all crashed out at the first hurdle.
Jamie Baker, the only other Brit in the men’s singles, went down 7-6 (7-4), 6-3, 6-4 to Andreas Beck, while Anne Keothavong and Heather Watson also crashed in three sets.
Keothavong threw away a 4-0 lead in the deciding set to go down 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 to Australia’s Anastasia Rodionova, while debutant Watson suffered a 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 defeat to Italian Romina Sarina Oprandi.