Andy Murray sets standard with humbling of Roberto Bautista Agut

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/jun/27/andy-murray-roberto-bautista-agut-wimbledon-champion

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If brilliance can appear routine, Andy Murray managed it on Centre Court at Wimbledon on Friday night. In a little over an hour and a half of often breathtaking tennis that contained only a handful of flaws, the defending champion advanced to the fourth round by embarrassing the accomplished Spaniard Roberto Bautista Agut 6-2, 6-3, 6-2.

It was a performance that will give his next opponent, the power-serving Kevin Anderson – who aggravated a back spasm while beating Fabio Fognini – plenty to think about over the weekend. Others on his side of the draw, including the injured Novak Djokovic and Grigor Dimitrov, will not have missed it either.

“I have a very good team with me,” Anderson said of the stiffness that struck just after the warm-up of a match he won 4-6, 6-4, 2-6, 6-2, 6-1 on Court 17 in two hours and 45 minutes – a relatively quick five-setter. “My physio, he’s already taken a look at it. Nothing to worry about.”

Be that as it may, everything would seem to be going Murray’s way. He is striking the ball with crispness, powering up on his serve when he needs to – he hit 11 aces and won the point from 35 of 40 successful first serves – and is moving with all his old zip. There has been no talk for a while now about the back surgery nine months ago that briefly threatened his career. “This is the surface where Murray moves better than anyone,” John McEnroe said. “He gets it.” He certainly does.

When he is playing like this, he is pretty much irresistible. Agut, in style and temperament not dissimilar to the Scot but not as good, discovered that as Murray mowed him down to register his third win here in straight sets and his 16th on the spin at Wimbledon.

While Murray has never lost here to a player ranked as low as the world No23 Agut, he was generous to him later (and correct) when he pointed out: “He’s won a lot of matches, a tournament last week on grass in Holland. He fights extremely hard. There were a lot of close games at the end.” But Agut did little more than inconvenience Murray when the Scot’s concentration dipped, partly because he was winning so many points so easily.

“It was a step up,” Murray said, reflecting on his three-set wins over David Goffin and Blaz Rola, both outside the top 50 and who, between them, could take only 12 games off him in six sets. “I thought I responded well. There are a few things I could do a little better.”

He has had a relatively light workload here in the first week because of that lack of resistance but is not concerned about being underdone. “I had enough long matches in the French Open to get me ready for the longer matches here. Kevin is a tough opponent. Like Roberto he’s playing the best tennis of his career. He’s a big guy, with a big game.”

They have a win apiece, Anderson winning pretty easily in Montreal three years ago and Murray taking the first encounter just as easily, in the Australian Open the year before. But Anderson, 18 in the world, is a revived force, with wins this year over Stanislas Wawrinka, David Ferrer and Alexandr Dolgopolov.

Agut was on fire when the last significant match of the day started, about the time of the evening news – in his low-key, peak-capped sort of way, quietly going stroke for stroke with his new friend (they practised together in Valencia before the Madrid Open and later swapped tales about their schoolboy days as football apprentices).

Murray, whose second serve was dipping into the low 70s, needed an ace and a 26-shot rally to stay with him in a tentative start but, after 10 minutes, he hit a lethal rhythm to break to love with some sumptuous groundstrokes and hold for 3-1 after a quarter of an hour. Ten minutes later he had stretched it to 5-2, rounding out the set with a definitive service game.

Murray’s serve was the bedrock of his dominance and not much fell kindly for Agut under sustained, quality pressure from almost the first moments to the last, which arrived nearly three hours inside the 11pm curfew and with no need for either the roof or artificial lighting.

The forecast of rain could hardly have been more awry on a warm day under largely blue skies but there was a cloud over the Spaniard’s head when Murray broke him for the third time with barely an hour gone – systematically breaking down his tennis with superb use of underspin, deep and wide – before surrendering his own serve, at 5-3, for the first time this week. But he finished with a flourish, a dinky little backhand volley on the run leaving Agut stranded fully 15 yards from the ball.

Murray was racing through the third set, 4-0 after 13 minutes, before a couple of double faults delayed his progress but there was no doubting the inevitable.

Judy Murray – who had been on No2 Court watching her elder son, Jamie, win his doubles match against Jamie Delgado and Gilles Müller, alongside the Australian Johnny Peers, turned up just a tick before 8pm to see the closing shots of Andy’s match. “He’s No1 son,” Murray said of his brother. “It’s why we’re always so competitive.” And he did appear to be smiling.

Mrs Murray had said on Desert Island Discs that morning that she tried desperately hard not to show her emotions when watching either of her sons on court, but there was a hint of a grin when Murray forced a final tumble out of Agut, who could do no more than put a racket on Murray’s well-struck forehand as he hit the turf. She might even have been humming her favourite song, Caledonia by Amy Macdonald, under her breath.