JAMIE Murray’s late, late shows on Centre Court had been in danger of becoming a nightly event.
That is back-to-back nights now that the Scot and his respective doubles partners have brought the curtain down under the roof on the most famous lawn in world tennis, rather ironic considering Roger Federer finds himsmelf exiled out on to Court No 1 today.
Not that the All England Club can have any complaints about the value for money the elder Murray sibling has been providing. On Monday night, he and mixed doubles partner Viktoria Azarenka produced one of the stories of this championships as they reeled off six straight games from 5-1 down in the second set against Colombia’s Robert Farah and Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany to get his defence of his mixed doubles title up and running. No wonder the hashtag created for the partnership by his mum Judy, #Muzzarenka, was briefly trending on Twitter.
Read more: Andy Murray: Skipping SW19 was great decision
Last night, he was back out there after the women’s quarter finals, he and his men’s doubles partner Bruno Soares finding themselves involved in a five-set thriller of a quarter final against Raaven Klaasen of South Africa and Michael Venus of New Zealand. Twice a set to the good, the Scottish-Brazilian double act found themselves pegged back each time in tie-breakers, and before long they were a break down again in the deciding fifth set to the 13th seeds. While they wriggled off the hook again with Klaaven unable to serve for the match, the Soares serve was broken in the very next match and they were eventually prised out of the tournament by a 7-6 (5), 6-7 (5), 7-5, 6-7 (4), 6-4 scoreline. The men’s doubles title here still eludes the Scot.
If you think winning one Wimbledon title is tough, just think how difficult it is to claim two. Jamie would have been joining world greats such as Serena Williams (2016) and Martina Hingis (2015) if he had managed to claim both these prizes.
Mind you, all this tennis is playing havoc with his attempts to watch the World Cup. After Belgium-France last night, if he makes it all the way to the mixed doubles final, that will be a direct clash with the World Cup final. “If England are in the final then obviously I would want to watch it but I am not too bothered, particularly if there are other teams in the final,” he said.”But everyone has a lot of matches to play before that point.”
Read more: Andy Murray: Skipping SW19 was great decision
Murray and his coach Louis Cayer have helped mentor a new generation of British doubles talent and it says something that two British players will be involved in the men’s quarter finals even if he isn’t there. His occasional Davis Cup partner Dom Inglot and his partner Franko Skugor of Croatia made it through to the last eight with a 6-3, 6-7 (2), 7-6 (1), 6-4 win against Robin Haase of Holland and Robert Lindstedt of Sweden, while England’s Joe Salisbury and Frederik Nilsen now take on Klaasen and Venus in the semi-finals.
Barring no ill effects on that wounded knee, Muzzarenka is back in action third on Court No 2 today against Matwe Middlekoop of the Netherlands and Johanna Larsson of Sweden in a mixed doubles event where British pair Jay Clarke and Harriet Dart took out No 1 seeds Mate Pavic and Gabriela Dabrowski.
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