One of the great joys of doubles is witnessing a lethally timed interception and having produced a few on court yesterday, Bruno Soares delivered an even better example in the Wimbledon interview room.
After a testing first set against Czech pair Roman Jebavy and Jiri Vesely which was decided in a tie break, he and Jamie Murray had come smoothly through their men’s doubles opening round 7-6, 6-2, 6-4 and the Scot was dealing clinically with everything being put to them afterwards when, having been quietly passive , the Brazilian leapt into action.
Borrowing from another sport Murray was playing a solid straight bat to a question about whether the winners of half of last year’s Grand Slams, former world number one pairing and current Wimbledon third seeds should have been asked to play on a court with one of the smallest spectator capacities in the All England Club, but Soares felt the need to intervene.
“I was very surprised. Jamie’s not,” he said.
“There’s no need to say more.”
But he did say more in making it clear that his observation was not a case of making a prima donna style demand to be on a show court and was instead prompted by a combination of dealing with practicalities and showing a home favourite the respect he deserved in allowing as many people as possible to watch him play.
“I think (courts) 14 to 17 are fine, at least where people can see the courts and all the match. Court five literally fits 50 people,” Soares noted
“It’s difficult for our friends and family to see, imagine what it’s like for the rest of the people.
“I just think because it’s Jamie… he’s not going to say that, but for what he brings to British tennis playing at Wimbledon, he’s a member here, I don’t think it’s nice.”
Murray confined himself to admitting he would prefer to play on bigger courts, but was prepared to elaborate on some comments made on Twitter the previous day, when he suggested that ‘Hawkeye’ replay facilities should be available on every court at Grand Slam tournaments.
“I know it’s not always possible with the lay-out of certain courts, but I think there should be more than they have, but that’s not the way they go for it right now,” he observed.
“We hope it gets better and we hope every court has Hawkeye because it’s not fair that the top players are protected because they’re playing on the big courts and we’re out in the bushes and stuff happens and we can’t do anything about it.”
The expectation must be that they will play any further matches on the better appointed courts as, a decade after becoming a Wimbledon champion when he won the mixed doubles title with Jelena Jankovic, Murray pursues the title he has said he most covets.
“It’s a home Grand Slam. Not so many players get that opportunity so that’s obviously huge,” he said.
There was, meanwhile, a victory for another Scot on the same court when, given a wildcard in the ladies doubles, Jocelyn Rae and partner Laura Robson followed them on and claimed a surprise 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 win over 11th seeds Raquel Atawo and Jelena Ostapenko, last month’s beaten French Open finalist.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here