Andy Murray will go into Wimbledon more confident than ever after the "great preparation" of winning the Aegon Championships for the fourth time in his career at Queen's Club.
The Scot notched up title No 34 of his career, and his third in the past two months, as he dismantled the big game of South Africa's Kevin Anderson 6-3, 6-4 with a near-perfect grass court display.
In terms of pure tennis, it was a performance as good as any Murray has produced on grass and the world No 3 said he could not be happier with his game with Wimbledon only a week away.
"It's great preparation," said Murray, who equalled the record of four wins held by John McEnroe, Pete Sampras, Lleyton Hewitt and Andy Roddick. "But I need to go out there and earn it. I need to train well the next five, six days, prepare as well as I can. It's a great start to my preparation on the grass. It gives me that little bit of confidence going in there."
Murray said he feels he has playing even better than he did when he won Wimbledon in 2013 but warned that repeating the feat will not be easy. "It's been a really good start but it's a long way to go before Wimbledon even starts and then all sorts of things can happen during [Grand] Slams," he said."
In 2013, it was the victory at Queen's which set Murray on his way to the title at Wimbledon but he put that down to coincidence. "That means nothing, really," he said. "It's great preparation, obviously, but I think it has only happened six times where someone has won Queen's and gone on to win. There are no guarantees that winning here gives you a Wimbledon title."
Having lost just twice since March, both times to world No.1 Novak Djokovic, Murray said that if anything, he felt he was a better player than two years ago.
"I feel like I have improved [since winning Wimbledon]", he said. "Physically I'm definitely in a better place than I was then. Obviously I was having problems with my back around that time, not so much on the grass but on the other surfaces.
"I was ranked, I don't know, three, four in the world around that time and I'm still there just now. If you don't continue to improve and get better, there are going to be people that will take your spot.
"I feel like I'm using my variety very well just now, something that maybe I wasn't the last couple of years. That's been good for me. More experience, more matches, there are a few things I'm doing a little bit better."
Murray dropped just five points on serve in the opening set and won it thanks to one break, in the fourth game, helped by one brilliant pass and then a mistake by Anderson on a high volley.
The second set was a bit tighter but Murray broke in the third game with a delicate drop shot after lobbing the 6ft 8in South African and he cruised to victory, celebrated with a simple pump of the fist.
"I served extremely well," he said. "I wasn't expecting to have loads of opportunities with the way he had been serving this week and the way the courts were playing.
"So thankfully when the chances came, I managed to come up with some kind of instinctive shots, guess the right way on a couple of shots and managed to get the breaks.
"Once I got into the rallies I was doing really well, but it was obviously tough to do that some of the times. He served extremely high percentage of first serves and was serving big. But it was a good performance."
The victory made it nine wins out of nine with Jonas Bjorkman in the box but Murray also paid tribute to Amelie Mauresmo.
"A lot of the work I've done with her is paying off," he said. "All of the things I have worked on with her, like using my variety, that's things I have been working on with her for quite a while now," he said.
"Hopefully a culmination of the two of them will give me more success. It's been a good start."
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