This summer serves up an absolute feast of British sport, with Wimbledon providing a tasty filler between the football European Championship and the upcoming London Olympics. After England limped out of the football tournament on Sunday, the sporting expectations of the nation arguably turn to Andy Murray. So we find ourselves asking yet again, could this be the year?
Murray faced a potentially tricky first round match against former no. 3 seed Davydenko. However, it was clear from early on in the match that there was only ever going to be one winner. Murray oozed confidence and was perhaps spurred on by the hype surrounding his recent back problems. Drama Queen? Turn over the channel Virginia Wade, because there are no drama queens to be seen on Centre Court tonight, try ITV.
Murray crafted a delightful performance to brush Davydenko aside and based on this outing, it looks like winning that elusive Grand Slam title may not be far from reach. The media scrutiny may be slightly less this year, given that we have such a busy schedule of sport, which hopefully can allow Andy to quietly progress in the tournament without the usual level of hysteria.
Fresh from his defeat over Davydenko, Murray was asked if the pressure is getting greater given his Wimbledon experience, to which he replied:
“I probably settle into matches maybe a bit quicker than I used to, the last few weeks have been hard as I’ve been desperate to get the tournament going as there’s been a lot of talk from a lot of people.”
Sounds like a great return of the comments served by a certain Miss Wade. One thing is clear, Andy is no drama queen but can he be king of the court?
To see all our predictions for upcoming matches, based on our machine learning model analysing results since 1960, see our tennis predictions page here.
