ALL change.
Not only is there a different dynamic to the diary this year, the All England Club have made numerous alterations to the place since 12 months ago. This includes ending the lunchtime apartheid between written press and broadcast journalists, who are all now lumped together in one spectacular dining area. It is all high-end, haute cuisine stuff, but unfortunately there is no room for Andy Murray's favourite meal. His granny's shepherd's pie.
Rummage note 2.0. Regular readers of this feature, which often recounted laconic, half-hearted bag searches, may be surprised to learn that the changes include the security area being upgraded into the most space-age facility this side of Terminal 5 at Heathrow. After everything short of a retina scan, cavity search and biological passport check, your diarists were finally admitted into the venue. Also like Terminal 5, there was a large queue.
Andy Murray has a face to launch a thousand publications. The diarists are confronted with the Scot's visage, staring back from the front page of the July issue of every newspaper, magazine or journal. Though quite what he has to do with Tropical Fish Monthly and Practical Caravanning we are not so sure.
The Scot was hailed as the next big thing with a storming run in these championships ten years ago. But he wasn't sure whether he was the Messiah or just a naughty boy. "I was so unknown in 2005 that lots of reports still called me Andrew, which is something only my grandparents still do. When I was a kid I'd get called Andrew when I was in trouble ..."
It emerges that new coach Jonas Bjorkman has been playing a few 'semi-competitive' points with Andy Murray in practice. Unfortunately for him, with Andy Murray there is no such thing. "He started to get into a bit of a rhythm towards the end, so we decided to play the last point out and I won it with a drop shot," says the Scot. "He then complained that I was drop-shotting a 43-year-old man."
Sir Jackie Stewart was one of the guests of honour in the Royal Box today. He was rubbing shoulders with the likes of newsreaders Fiona Bruce and Sir Trevor McDonald, former champion Stefan Edberg and retired British player Ross Hutchins. Perhaps the most important guest, however, was 76-year-old Roman Zoltowski, who drives here from Poland every year and engraves the names of the winners on their respective trophies.
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