ANDY Murray declared himself happy enough with his Wimbledon preparations to reward himself with a rare day off yesterday - as he and his coach Ivan Lendl set their sights on dethroning a man in Novak Djokovic who never seems to have an off day. The World No 2 limited his day's exertions to media duties ahead of his all-British battle with wild card Liam Broady in the first round on Centre Court on Tuesday, some 24 hours after another of his Davis Cup colleagues James Ward does battle with his bitter Serbian rival. While Murray will be sure to brief his friend Ward before his date with Djokovic and expects him to handle the occasion well, he knows to his cost the consistency which sees the Serb turn up at SW19 this year with all four Grand Slam titles in his possession.
"I believe my practice this week has been good," said Murray. "My team has been happy with everything. If it wasn't going well, I probably wouldn't have had a day off today. But I got a day off the practice court, trying to refresh a little bit, recover a little bit, get ready for a big push the next couple of weeks.
"Novak obviously plays every shot well," the 29-year-old added. "He doesn't have weaknesses in his game and plays well on all of the courts. But his consistency and drive over the last few years has been incredible.
"The amount of finals he has played - there's been barely any matches that he's played that you'd call upsets in the last, I don't know, 15 or 16 months, since Doha last year. I don't know if that's ever happened before. In an individual sport, if you have a really bad day, wake up, you feel terrible, you lose at this level. But he hasn't had really any of those results or those matches over the last few years. That's very impressive."
While it would certainly be handy for the Scot's pursuit of a third Grand Slam title if Djokovic bucked that trend and failed to reach the showpiece match at SW19 a fortnight today, Murray's focus is solely on what he can achieve. Having sidestepped the inevitable enquiry about his views on Brexit, other than letting slip the fact that he has been following it "very closely" and "stayed up pretty late on whatever night it was, into the morning" to watch the results coming in on TV, the serious business for him begins with his first-ever all British singles meeting at SW19 against Broady on Tuesday.
No fewer than 15 players from these isles are involved in the first round at this tournament, the most since the days when wild cards were being dispensed by the LTA like sweeties. Instead this year seven enter the fray with direct acceptances, while Marcus Willis made it all the way through qualifying.
While he invited Broady to practise with him in late February and is generally one of the main cheerleaders for his fellow countrymen, Murray will be sure not to offer any encouragement on Tuesday. The Scot has at least been partially responsible for publicly humiliating him once already: to celebrate his maiden call up for Davis Cup duty after the first round tie against the USA at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, Broady was forced to undertake the usual initiation of making a speech at the official dinner in midweek then again in front of a bemused crowd on the Sunday. Further embarrassment awaits if he fluffs his lines again on Tuesday.
"I know Liam fairly well," said Murray. "It will be a bit strange. It's never happened before for me.
"Everyone, when they are invited to their first Davis Cup, they obviously do the speech at the dinner," said Murray. "He had obviously never been to one of the dinners before, so he wasn't sure exactly what he should say. We were telling him the wrong things to say and hoping he would stand up and actually say them. I did it in Israel when I was 17. That was my first tie. I've seen a lot of people do those speeches before. They're not easy."
Broady, a Manchester City supporter from Stockport, said that beating Andy Murray on Centre Court on Tuesday would make even Leicester City's Barclays Premier League win pale into insignificance. “It’s a real David v Goliath, beating him will be like Leicester City winning the league situation, or maybe even less likely," said Broady. "Like Stockport winning the Premier League in one season from the Vanarama North.”
Murray isn't sure what part he has played in this surge of British tennis optimism, but he is just happy if he has made a contribution. "If I've given them a little bit extra sort of incentive to work a bit harder or motivated them in any way, then I'm really, really happy about that," said Murray. "But ultimately they need to be the ones themselves that go out and win the matches, practice and train hard. That's the culture you want in this sport in this country because it's something a lot of players and coaches have felt like we've lacked that a bit in the past."
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