And breathe again. Public concern at the state of Andy Murray’s hip injury has been a prominent note in the build-up to Wimbledon this summer. Pray for Andy, one newspaper urged on the eve of the championships, calling for a collective effort of psychic will to ease that troubling joint, save the British summer and all the rest of it.
In the event Murray cut an awkward, pained figure through his two hours on Centre Court, dragging those bulked-up ankles across the turf like a pedigree shire horse, wincing up at his coach and apparently in a state of continual sulky discomfort. So no change there then. The good news is: Andy’s back. And he still looks an awful lot like Andy.
It was a welcome return in more important ways, too, as Murray put some poor form behind him to produce an easy, low-rev champion’s performance against Alexander Bublik. Victory by 6-1, 6-4, 6-2 was hardly unexpected. But it came with a reassuring sense of parts clunking into place, the Murray cogs and wheels beginning to whirr and of a man entirely at home in his Centre Court fiefdom. But then Wimbledon tends to have a soothing, settling effect generally.
Stroll around the floral byways of the All England Club and what strikes you each time is how strikingly un-striking everything is, how unremarkably just-so every beautifully tailored detail remains. Things that do not really exist elsewhere these days exist here as staples, essentials. Panama hats. Blazers. Endless crinkly, sun-bronzed men with elegantly bouffant hair and crested ties: where are they the rest of the year? Even the impressive structural renovations seem to have been blended with conservation-area care, like the world’s greatest high-end suburban kitchen extension project.
As Centre Court filled before play at lunchtime there was a crackle of distinctly Wimbledon-issue excitement around the galleries and the deep-green banquettes. Every year the flags and hats and union flag tea towels seem to thin a little but the sense of pageantry is relentlessly present. In the aisles the military personnel maintained a stately stewarding presence. The appearance of the ball-kids and umpires was applauded with knowing gusto. And then finally there he was, the great Andy himself, lolling out with a beautifully minor-chord sense of anti-showmanship, letting Bublik go first and take the brunt of the barking cheer around this tight little arena.
As the shrieks died away and the Go-on-Andys were stilled Murray took his first point of the championship defence with a lovely running forehand close to the net. Anyone playing Murray is going to make him run this year and Bublik tried his best in the opening set, unveiling a repertoire of dinky drop shots and cunning angles.
Bublik was a fun opponent all round, gangly with a goofy grin and an agreeably ponderous way of bending to the ball on his backhand, as though peering down at an unexpected ladybird infestation in the Wimbledon turf. He has a power-serve and some shot-making talent but Murray on Centre Court is a mature juggernaut these days. He was 4-1 up with 18 minutes gone and cruising, toying kittenishly with his opponent’s angles and slice, and showing good mobility as Murray took the first set to a vast, fond ovation.
Odd to think there was a time when Wimbledon struggled to embrace the finest British tennis player ever. Gaga for Tim from the get-go, Wimbledon looked on Murray more coldly at first. But then Wimbledon is not simply about sport or scales of achievement, at least not for the majority of its annual day-tripping ultras. It is a celebration of other concerns too, an expression in its milling crowds, its quiet grandeur of something distinct and unshakable, the glories of suburban contentment, the leafy prosperity of southern England’s Surrey rump.
On days like these the crowd still titters and gurgles at the giddiness of it all on Centre Court, not because anything funny is happening but out of pure ambient pleasure at the glorious success of simply being here. There were audible oohs and and gasps as Murray hit a lob from the back of the court, which is something that happens in tennis. At one stage a man in the second tier caught a top-edged ball to huge, disbelieving whoops and screams at the sheer wondrousness of such an event.
A sprinkling of rain came and went. Murray may have appreciated the break, although he was cheerful afterwards, amused by the bonhomie of his opponent and apparently unbothered by his hip. It still seems likely he will have to manage himself through the tournament, each match a further act of will. Not that we would expect anything less. From gangly, awkward youth to gangly, awkward 30-year-old Murray has been an odd combination of surcharged fitness and an oddly endearing physical awkwardness.
He mooches. He lopes. He slouches. Murray used to walk between points like a sulky teenager. Now he walks like a sulky grown man, a traipse that will become only more pronounced the longer this Wimbledon goes on but which seems to chime in its own way with the wider spectacle of that grizzled old guard, the 30-something grandees of the modern game still just about keeping their noses ahead of the pack.
