He had done it. Not only had he just beaten Jiri Vesely, a man ranked 66 places higher than him, not only had he reached the third round at Wimbledon for the first time in his career, but he was now cemented his place inside the world’s top 100.
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World number 45 Vesely upset Ward’s rhythm by battling back in the third set, not least through calling for the trainer three times and the doctor twice to deal with shoulder trouble.
“Yeah, of course”, said Ward when asked if he still considers himself Britain’s second-best player behind Murray.
London (AFP) – James Ward admitted he was relieved to finally silence the critics after the British wildcard made it to the Wimbledon third round for the first time.
Speaking about his prize money last night, Ward said: ‘Everyone’s got bills to pay.
Jiri Vesely is coming off a straight set victory over Paolo Lorenzi, which took over two and a half hours to finish.
“Winning the third round would probably be like Arsenal winning the title next year and after that, we start thinking about Champions League finals”. But let’s think about Saturday first.’.
“He could still go further and certainly has an opportunity to win the match”. Today I saw the last couple of games.
Murray, who is enormously supportive of other British players, was particularly pleased for Ward, who bears the perennial mien of the put-upon underdog, although he was quick to put his achievement in perspective.
He was quick to highlight the mentoring qualities of British No1 Murray in the wake of his victory although the Scot has thrown the gauntlet down to his Davis Cup teammate and urged him to feature at this stage of tournaments more regularly. He’s a good friend of mine and we spend a lot of time together.
“I watch a lot of his matches online when he’s playing Challengers and stuff”.
“It’s always a good help spending time with him at Davis Cup and off-season as well, which I’ve been lucky enough to do”.
Murray reckons his Davis Cup team-mate has a good chance of making it into the second week against Pospisil, who shocked No. 30 seed Fabio Fognini yesterday. Vesely played a great, clean match and it was the type of performance that could get more people to notice the 21-year-old. Everyone has picked their game up, it’s good to have a few more guys playing well and winning matches – we keep knocking at the door.
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But the Slovenian-born 26-year-old, who was awarded a passport in March, believes his first Wimbledon representing his adopted country will spur him on to better things.
