'The only thing I can do is try to perform on the court'

Three times he has stood one win away from a grand slam title; three times he has fallen agonisingly short. At Wimbledon, he has been a semi-finalist for the past three years.

As Britain's best player since Fred Perry, Murray is the focus of attention throughout Wimbledon and only Roger Federer has played more matches on Centre Court in recent years.

But you can never have too much of a good thing and, as he began to wind down ahead of the serious stuff beginning, Murray revealed that he has been taking every possible chance to get on to Centre Court lately, just to soak up the atmosphere.

"I've done it many times in the last four or five months," Murray said, relaxing behind the scenes in The Boodles event at Stoke Park, where he played two exhibition matches last week. "It's very quiet and sometimes I want to get out of the way and not be bothered, just do my own thing.

"I have sat on Centre Court with no one there and thought a bit about the court, the matches I have played there. If I had done that five or six years ago I would not really have known what I was looking at, it was just another court. But when you have played so many matches, I have a lot of memories from that court, so it means a lot to me. When you sit down you think about all the matches you played, not just one. It seems like a long time ago since the first time."

On the surface, his preparation for this year's event has been less than stellar; a stop-start clay-court season, beaten in the quarter-finals of the French Open and a first-match exit in the Aegon Championships at London's Queen's Club. A nagging back injury – which he revealed at the weekend needed eight pain-killing injections in the run-up to the French Open, was clearly a significant factor.

But the 25-year-old maintains he is fully fit, and he will need to be as his draw here is not the kindest.

Former world No.3 Nikolay Davydenko is first up before a trio of big servers – Ivo Karlovic, Kevin Anderson and Milos Raonic or Marin Cilic, the winner at Queen's – are likely to follow.

And all that before a possible rematch with David Ferrer, the man who stopped him in his tracks in Paris earlier this month. But Murray is happy with the way his practice has gone and, with his previous semi-final experience, is at home on grass.

These two weeks must be like living in a goldfish bowl for Murray, his every move, word and even utterance interpreted, reinterpreted and analysed by anyone and everyone. Ask a casual sports fan what they think of Andy Murray and the answers will invariably be something such as "grumpy" or "couldn't he smile a bit more?"

There are those who feel that Murray's on-court demeanour holds him back, that he would be better if he rid himself of negativity on court, perhaps embraced his humorous side.

Murray says he doesn't care too much about his public image, certainly less than when he first came on tour as an 18-year-old.

"I've been called everything, by many people, criticised by great players, journalists or people in the street," he said. "Whatever I say or do, it's never going to be right. The only thing I can do is try to perform on the court.

"If I perform on the court, that's what I care about. I care about the people within tennis and, when I finish playing, my results, my own views as a tennis player. I know what I do off the court, [how I treat] people around me. I think I'm a very nice person. I'm very polite to everybody that I meet. I don't say anything bad about any other players on the Tour.

"So, just because I'm a bit negative on the court, sometimes, does that make me a bad person? I don't think that's the case."

Since the arrival of Ivan Lendl, who took over as his coach on New Year's Eve, the Scot has clearly made an effort not to get so down on himself.

When the going gets tough that can be hard for anyone to do, but what irks Murray is that people do not realise how hard he is trying to improve.

"You can come to spend a week with me one time when I'm training and see all of the things off the court that I do, the people that I speak to, the things I try in practice, the things I do in the gym to try to make sure that it doesn't happen in matches," he said.

"Maybe it is something that has held me back. But I'm trying. I've tried to change it. It's not something that I haven't looked at. I've seen myself on the court and thought, 'Andy, you can do a much better job with that'.

"I've tried. I've tried hard to do it. But it's not always possible to keep your emotions in check, as we've seen with many, many players over the years."

The calmness under pressure of Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic in the past two years is often held up as a comparison, but the world No.4 believes it's about the kind of person you are.

"There are times in matches in the past, in smaller events and slams, where I would have said something negative or behaved in a way that probably didn't help me," he admitted.

"But I've watched Novak in matches, yelling and go mental at his box, breaking rackets and whatever and no-one [says anything].

"Sometimes he can go on a really bad streak. In the [Wimbledon] final even, last year, he almost tanked the third set but he came back and won.

"Ideally, I'd not like to have any moments in matches where I was negative, and it's something that I've tried to improve on, which I think I have over a five, six-year period, but it's part of my personality to be emotional.

"Also, if I went out on the court and said absolutely nothing, I know I would come off and people would say, 'Andy, what was wrong with you today? You seemed very flat on the court. You weren't expressing yourself'."

Murray admits his relationship with Lendl is past "the honeymoon period" but is delighted with things so far and wants it to be a long-term arrangement.

The Czech-born American famously did everything he could to win Wimbledon, only to twice lose in the final. It would be a delicious irony if he could achieve it as the coach of the country's best and, at times, most misunderstood player.