DAY one of Wimbledon and Andy Murray was working away quietly on a hard court, somewhere far away from the prying eyes of the media.

While the Scot’s light-hearted appeal for coaching work on Instagram this fortnight following his 11th hour withdrawal sparked a brief flurry of interest from the likes of Nick Kyrgios, Alexander Zverev and Sloane Stephens, otherwise it was very much business as usual.

Much as the rhythms of this place have revolved around one kid from Dunblane for more than a decade - he missed the event in 2007 -Wimbledon will continued to turn in his absence, much as world tennis has done for much of the last 12 months.

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John McEnroe, typically, wasn’t shy about saying his piece, saying he was “a little bit surprised, a little bit bummed” by the Scot’s withdrawal. And in a way this feeling was understandable, coming as it did just 24 hours after the 31-year-old had told the world that he ‘likely would play’ barring any further setbacks on his comeback from a hip problem. Thankfully there had been no further setbacks, just the realisation – if it wasn’t there all along – that a lengthy tournament of five-set contests was beyond him right now.

“On the one hand, what did he have to lose?” said McEnroe. “He pushed towards playing Wimbledon, which was what he wanted to do, and played the warm up events. He has played three top players along the way, probably playing Kyle Edmund at Eastbourne was not what he wanted to do. It might have been depressing for him. He looked physically pretty good on the grass, from the physical standpoint grass isn’t as hard as clay or hard courts. So I am a little bit surprised, a little bit bummed.”

The world is clearly impatient for the Scot to return but patience has become Murray watchword. His world ranking will take another hit on the strength of this, but the 31-year-old clearly conceded he did have far more than that to lose, namely the positive progress made upon his comeback from injury in the last four weeks. No-one would have castigated him for losing to Paire, a player who had match points against Roger Federer recently. But potentially going five sets would have taken his body into uncharted territory. And to what end?

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“He really did make a lot of improvement in a short space of time," said Tim Henman. "He did well at Queen’s and Eastbourne just to be out there competing. Best of five sets, at Wimbledon, was a little bit too soon. He didn’t want to be winning just a couple of matches. He wanted to be winning seven matches to add to his Grand Slam tally and that wasn’t going to be the case.

“When he has had different injuries over his career and at times he has come back too quickly,” the Englishman added. “At a tour level event, best of three sets, he is competing at a decent level. But best of five, on grass, is a big step up. I’m interested to see how he transitions to hard courts. You would think it would help his footwork. But is it going to have more impact, put more stress on his joints?”