Sport & Fitness

Andy Murray has spent the last month damping down the hype as Britain’s hottest tennis hope approaches the part of the season when the focus will be most intense. At Queen’s Club last week, Murray doused the flames of expectation in the best way possible when he slid to defeat in the first round of the Stella Artois Championships against Janko Tipsarevic, the 114th-ranked Belgrade-born baseliner whose most distinguishing feature is a quotation from Dostoevsky tattoed on his arm.

Even at this most conservative of venues, the crowd have always been on first-name terms with Britain’s two other players of repute, Tim and Greg. However, they’re not yet certain how to address the 19-year-old world number 45, whose scalps earlier this year included Andy Roddick and Lleyton Hewitt. ‘Come on… Murray,’ pleaded one voice as a flurry of unforced errors sent him 3-1 down in the first set tie-break. ‘Come on, Murray!’ echoed another as a putative passing shot thumped into the net. ‘Come on Andy!’ implored a more familiar third voice as he dropped serve in the first game of the second set. It could have been his mother Judy, who continues to support her son until he finds a new coach to replace Mark Petchey. Feature continues

In contrast to the man he briefly replaced as British number one, Murray plays with visible passion. While Henman’s clenched fist looks wimpish and contrived (yet disguises a fierce inner strength), the Scot’s mannerisms are more instinctive. However, the odd expletive needs to be backed up by the consistent performances that have kept Henman among the elite for a decade. A low-key start away from the glare of Centre Court would maintain perspective on Murray’s rise into the world top 50. Sadly, that’s unlikely.

At least Murray offers one more hope of British tennis avoiding its annual embarrassment in SW19. The Lawn Tennis Association’s new chief executive, Roger Draper, signalled his determination to make changes by axeing performance director David Felgate, then slashed the number of wild cards granted to British players from 12 to seven in a refusal to reward mediocrity.

Instead, other Brits with ambition must pitch up at the Bank of England Sports Club this week, alongside Challenger Circuit stalwarts, up-and-coming hotshots and a few bigger names currently down on their luck to bid for places in the main Wimbledon draws through the qualifying tournament.

For many entrants, merely reaching SW19 would be an achievement in itself, but some have done far better. In 1977, 18-year-old John McEnroe went all the way to the semi-finals, as did Vladimir Voltchkov in 2000. A year earlier, women’s quarter-finalists Alexandra Stevenson and Jelena Dokic were both qualifiers. And in 2002, Croatian Mario Ancic arrived in this country having never played on grass, breezed through qualifying then became the first teenager to win his Centre Court debut since Björn Borg – when he beat a certain Roger Federer.

Draper wants to see ‘a harder attitude in British tennis, a culture based around winning’. Has Andy Murray’s rise to prominence inspired a clutch of other young talents with ability and appetite? The next two weeks will sort out the prospects from the no-hopers.