After Heather Watson’s monumental effort just failed to derail the great Serena Williams, it is still a rare pleasure to record that two more Britons, Andy Murray and James Ward, remain in the Gentlemen’s Singles mix on this first Saturday, along with the coolest gust of fresh air to invigorate The Championships for many a day.
Those national newspaper pictures of Dustin Brown with dreadlocks flying across his face like a nest of crazy tarantulas as he bamboozled poor old Rafael Nadal on Centre Court told the story of something completely different warming Wimbledon like a shot of Jamaican white rum.
Those images, adorning the tale of the spindly 30-year-old German-Jamaican journeyman finally hitting the big time after all those years of travelling round Europe in his camper van and doing late night racket-stringing for other pros to make ends meet, have made everyone crave the next chapter of Brown’s romantic adventures.
I'm dangerous. But I can also play a shocking match
So who knows what we are in for as he faces Viktor Troicki, Serbia’s streetwise world No.24 who’ll have no room for sentiment on No.3 Court? How can we know when even Brown himself doesn’t? “I’m dangerous,” he conceded after playing out of his tattooed skin. “But I can also play a shocking match.”
Now, don’t laugh but could Ward be our very own Brown? The London cabbie’s lad from a council estate in the capital, whose family had to make so many financial sacrifices to help him develop his career, is another who can mix mediocrity with the occasional dollop of magnificence.
As Sam Querrey, one of his US Davis Cup victims, noted here with a smile: “It's aggravating. He (Ward) beats me, John Isner and then loses 6‑2 6‑2 in a Challenger in the middle of nowhere. You have to credit the guy stepping up at the big moments.”
And this is his biggest moment yet on No.1 Court, even if Ward was deprived of his “ultimate” boyhood dream of a Centre Court date. Up against his Canadian friend, Vasek Pospisil, most celebrated here for winning last year’s Gentlemen’s Doubles with Jack Sock - when, inevitably, they were christened the “PopSocks” - Ward says reaching the fourth round would be the equivalent of his beloved Arsenal winning the Premier League title next season.
As two British men strut the third-round stage together for the first time since Greg Rusedski and Tim Henman both made it there in 2002, Murray has been providing guidance and support to his Davis Cup team-mate even if Ward won’t exactly thank him for revealing to the world his obsession with Taylor Swift.
Murray just marches on serenely to his own tune, with Andreas Seppi the latest charged on Centre Court with preventing him reaching the second week of Wimbledon for an eighth successive year.
Yet does the Italian, who knocked Roger Federer out of the Australian Open at this stage, really believe in himself having lost the last 13 sets the pair have contested in six contests?
Australian Sam Groth boasts the fastest recorded serve in history, a 163.7mph ace at a Challenger event in Korea, but you wonder how many similar bombs the world No.69 may have to send down on Centre to stop Federer’s magisterial progress towards a possible eighth title.
You have to credit Ward stepping up at the big moments
Petra Kvitova has been playing beautifully too, surrendering just three games in her first two matches. On Saturday, Jelena Jankovic, who became a champion here with Andy Murray’s brother Jamie in the mixed doubles eight years ago, must revisit her world No.1 heyday if the Czech is to be tested like Williams was on Friday and we are to enjoy a third successive day of wonderfully unfeasible theatre on Centre Court.
