His optimism very quickly looked misplaced, however, and after an initial hold in the very first game, he did not win another in the set, a 20-minute affair, 6-1.
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After the match, Murray was clear he did not doubt that Seppi had been injured, saying: ‘Andreas isn’t like that.’ He also denied there had been any gamesmanship on his part and said he rarely calls for a time-out.
The ex- No. 1, who has never advanced past the fourth round here, was up 5-1 in the second set but faltered as Allertova won five straight games.
Murray, the 2013 Wimbledon champion, required a medical time-out for treatment on his right shoulder after dropping the first game of the fourth set.
“The physio came on the court and said it was like a machine gun going off when he laid on top of me”.
“” I was napping”, said Wozniacki”. My serve was pretty bad after that happened.
“It wasn’t my best performance but he was better than me”, Morris said. That was the case for nearly two years with his back, before he had surgery in September 2013. “I would be rooting for Venus”, she said.
The South African reached the final of Queen’s last month and defending champion Djokovic believes the 14th seed is “playing the tennis of his life”.
Watson, 23, later tweeted: “Best atmosphere ever”.
Murray continued through the usual routine as the rain began-some loosening groundies, some practice at the net, a few overheads, a bit of serving, all under the quiet, watchful eye of the heavily pregnant Amelie Mauresmo-and the public faithfully stuck to their seats.
Seppi called the trainer first for a troublesome ankle, and the break in play seemed to bother both players.
“Andreas isn’t like that”.
Bar that third set, Murray produced some simply incredible tennis throughout the match, whilst his psychological game was fantastic, helping him recover from a mental set back just after the hour mark.
“If someone has treatment for their leg, you expect it’s going to hamper their movement”.
At this point John McEnroe, in his role as a commentator for the BBC and no stranger to the dark arts of gamesmanship, was questioning Seppi’s motives.
“From my side there wasn’t [any gamesmanship]”, added Murray.
“And against a big server you’re not trying to hit return winners, you’re trying to get the ball back in play so that you can use your other weapons”.
A pair of forehand errors in the opening game gave Murray an early break and as Seppi attempted to slug it out with the two-time finalist the mistakes continued as the early exchanges went with the form-book. “It’s not easy”.
Dealing with the intense pressure of being Britain’s only hope of title success at Wimbledon has previously appeared to weigh heavily on Murray, but there is a clear difference this year – and his mother puts that down to Mauresmo.
“Each point is a new one, so I don’t feel like anyone can beat me”. I think they need to reassess the rules.’.
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“Your heart rate slows down”. I don’t know how to explain it.
