Murray Marches In To Round Two

Maybe this is the year when Andy Murray can finally break his grand slam barrier and become the first British man since Fred Perry in 1936 to hold one of the four slams. There still remains a large mountain to climb and much greater challenges than today’s opponent. But today’s performance showed he is definitely a contender for this year’s title with a chance of breaking the stranglehold of Nadal, Djokovic and Federer’s dominance at the majors.

Murray was the dominant player throughout the match

Murray was last of the top four seeds to open his Wimbledon campaign on centre court, after question marks were raised following a disrupted preparation to his grass court season with an early exit at the AEGON Championships. But today Murray was in unstoppable form as he comfortably despatched former world number three Nikolay Davydenko 6-1 6-1 6-4 in a match that never looked in any doubt.

Davydenko is not renowned for being the biggest of servers in the game but early on the Russian was relying heavily on his first serve to keep in touch with his younger opponent, serving two aces to hold in the first game. However in the baseline rallies Murray was far the superior player, as Davydenko didn’t possess the weapons to hurt the Brit’s game. After capturing a break in game three Murray was ruthless in a one sided fist set giving no free points to Davydenko while also flattening out his forehand which could prove a big weapon in the later rounds.

The second set was no different for Davydenko who couldn’t cope with Murray’s variety of shots on the grass court. Murray continued to be aggressive continuously punishing the Russian’s weak second serve, racing to a 3-0 lead in set two. Davydenko knew he had to take risks to even compete with Murray’s level but in doing so he only produced more errors in another 6-1 set.

Davydenko could have thrown in the towel at that point, but to his credit he finally produced some form which won him the ATP World Tour Finals three years ago. But once Murray had the break there was no looking back capping off a brilliant serving performance in a match with ten aces and no break points conceded.

After the match Murray said “I was hitting the ball very clean from the start and used my slice very well”. Next Murray is now likely to face big serving Croatian Ivo Karlovic in round two.