Should Centre Court ever need another new roof, they can dispense with hiring contractors to lift the old one off, and just hope that Andy Murray plays a match of the calibre he did last night against the Frenchman Richard Gasquet: the crowd will soon have the roof raised.
Finally, after three matches at Wimbledon, Andy Murray had Centre Court enraptured. He came from two sets down to beat Gasquet, the 8th seed, and set up a quarter-final match with the number two seed, Rafael Nadal.
In a reasonable first set Murray fought hard, but could not break Gasquet’s serve. At 6-5 Murray faced break and set points. Gasquet attempted a drop-shot, and Murray seemed to stand still before realising where he was and what the score was, and raced over to scoop it up and save the point, drawing the kind of gasps from the crowd that had previously been reserved for Henman. He could not keep it up, however, and Gasquet took the first set 7-5.
After that, and a lacklustre second set during which McEnroe’s frustration with the Murray drop-shot on big points became evident to everyone, Murray looked down and out, losing the second set 6-3. He looked tired, even startled that he was going to be dispatched in such an untimely and undignified manner.
He had no answer to Gasquet’s tactics, and the Frenchman simply did not allow him to play his best tennis. He was broken in the third set, and Gasquet continued his emphatic lead - until he came to serve for the match at 5-4. He became nervous, and Murray found himself with three break points. Five all.
Murray held, but so did Gasquet. Tiebreak time. Murray quickly won the first point, and soon took it 7-3 with a spectacular passing shot that he hit from away beyond the tramlines at such an angle that mathematicians will have to rewrite Pythagoras.
In fact, he was so far out wide that he almost ended up celebrating from within the now jubilant crowd, and celebrate they did. Well done to the BBC cameraman who got that fantastic shot of Murray roaring his delight against a backdrop of standing bodies, raised arms, and ecstatic, disbelieving faces with mouths open almost as wide as Murray’s; who, at that point, looked like a python about to devour an elephant.
From here on in, Murray dictated the match, running away with the fourth set 6-2. Suddenly Gasquet was the one who looked tired; taken aback by Murray’s newfound energy, and overwhelmed by both his tennis and the rejuvenated crowd. Even the Aussie fans, distinctive in their yellow t-shirts, who had been decidedly under whelmed by Hewitt’s straight sets defeat to Federer earlier that day, stayed put to support Murray, and he gave them something to cheer about.
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