Tennis: Andy carrying Britain's hopes

Jun 26 2009 by Donald Morton, Stirling Observer Friday

LESS than a week into Wimbledon and Andy Murray is the sole man flying the flag for Britain.

As the Observer went to press yesterday (Thursday), the 22 year-old was preparing for his second round tie with Ernests Gulbis from Latvia, following his opening encounter with USA’s Robert Kendrick.

Murray came through in four sets, winning 7-5, 6-7, 6-3, 6-4, but it was a patchy performance and he will have to improve if he is to become GB’s first male winner since the halcyon days of Fred Perry in 1936.

But he is hoping the tough match against Kendrick helps him later in the tournament.

“At the US Open when I got to the final, I had some tough matches right at the start and when I managed to come through them it gave me confidence,” he said.

“But the easier you win, the better normally.”

Feigned

It will be the third time Murray and Gulbis have met with the Dunblane lad winning both times. In their first match at Queen’s last year, Gulbis claimed Murray feigned injury during the first set which the Latvian went on to win before the World No 3 came to win – withdrawing from the tournament shortly afterwards.

Victory over Gulbis would give Murray a third round tie against either Daniel Gimeno-Traver from Spain or Serbian Viktor Troicki.

Andy is being supported in his quest for glory by mum Judy and his girlfriend Kim Sears – and he’ll be backed by big brother Jamie, who saw his men’s doubles hopes disappear with a first-round defeat on Wednesday.

Jamie and partner Jonathan Erlich of Israel went down 6-4, 6-3, 6-1 to No 8 seeds Lukasz Kobot (Poland) and Oliver Marach (Austria). He admitted afterwards that he let his partner down.

Jamie has played with no fewer than eight different partners this year and said his confidence was low.

“I struggled all day on my serve,” he said. “Serving and returning are the two most important things and I didn’t do either of them well.

“It was disappointing stuff but it has been like that a lot this year.”

He still has mixed doubles ambitions, however. He won the title in 2007 with Jelena Jankovic and reached the semi-finals last year with USA’s Liezel Huber, who he partners this time round.

The duo were set to play South African Rik de Voest and Racquel Kops-Jones (USA) in a first round match yesterday (Thursday).

Flying

Also flying the Stirling flag is former Stirling University student Colin Fleming who partners fellow Brit Kenneth Skopski in the men’s doubles. Their first round tie was also due yesterday (Thursday) against Johan Brunstrom (Sweden) and Jean-Julien Rojer (Netherland Antilles).

A win would give them a second round tie against the No 1 seeds American brother Bob and Mike Bryan – a pairing the Brits defeated recently at Queen’s.