When he beat the defending champion and world number one at Wimbledon last year it was hard to imagine, on the basis of his track record, that Sam Querrey would ever surpass that achievement, but in repeating the feat yesterday he was in no doubt that he had done so.

The powerful 29-year-old American has long been seen as a threatening presence on a grass court, but whereas his defeat of Novak Djokovic had felt like a victory in itself, that over Andy Murray may have taken his career to a new level after a decade and more that had seen him enter 41 previous Grand Slam tournaments without ever getting to a semi-final.

That is a record in itself, no player ever having played so many tournaments before reaching a Grand Slam semi-final and he admitted that while he felt he was good enough to do so he feared this day might never come.

“Before last year, having never made the quarters of a slam, was kind of a bummer,” said Querrey.

“I felt like I was a good enough player to have that piece checked off. Now to do it back-to-back years, then make a semi, it’s extra toppings on top of the career. Last year definitely kind of gave me a new boost that I could do it, but there have been times in my career where I definitely thought, if I had to bet, am I going to make a semi, I probably would have gone no. Now that I made the quarters last year, and semis here, I’m feeling confident. I think I can go even a little further.”

In those observations he went some way towards responding in the right way towards the advice given to him by the man he had just beaten, Murray having said that the key to whether Querrey can reach the final and perhaps even win the tournament will be his own belief.

In itself that is a commentary on the strange tennis times in which we live, with a Scottish tennis player, ranked number one in the world as Murray is now assured of remaining at tournament’s end following Novak Djokovic’s departure, offering advice on the importance of self-confidence to an American challenger.

Yet the once dominant nation in men’s tennis that has remained so in the women’s game, largely thanks to the Williams sisters, has not produced a Grand Slam winner since Andy Rodddick won the US Open in 2003 and it is perhaps even more remarkable that no American man has contested a semi-final in one of those tournaments in the past eight years.

In addressing that Querrey felt the need to defend his and his compatriots’ record, but he acknowledged that his performance had the potential to give the sport a lift in their homeland.

“I mean, American tennis isn’t that bad,” he said.

“I know it kind of gets a bad rep, but that’s just because guys don’t win majors.

“We’ve got four guys in the top 30, a great group of young guys. To be in the semis is great. Hopefully myself and the other guys up there can have more weeks like this.

“Hopefully, you know, American tennis will get a little boost from this maybe, and other guys will gain some confidence, and we can just have more and more guys go deeper in slams.”