vallierojas: Murray finds his roar after first set

? Murray recovers to beat Gimeno-Traver 4-6, 6-3, 6-0, 6-0
? World No4 takes an hour to find his rhythm under the roof

Andy Murray gave Daniel Gimeno-Traver hope, then hell under the roof at Wimbledon on a night when Centre Court seemed even more sepulchral than usual.

It was, to say the least, a curious match, conducted in near reverential silence until it became apparent that the sacrificial lamb had turned into a bit of a lion.

As the rain arrived earlier than forecast to wipe out the remainder of the programme, the faithful huddled in the warm glow of their sheltered place of worship to watch the Scot deal with a trickier than expected assignment and advance to the second round in two hours and eight minutes, dropping the first set, hanging in to snatch the second, then destroying the Spaniard in the final two sets without losing a game.

In the face of his opponent's inspired resistance, followed by a collapse that worsened after Gimeno-Traver had treatment for a leg injury, Murray gathered his resources to win 4-6, 6-3, 6-0, 6-0.

He has played better in recent weeks and will do so again in this tournament. For the moment he is satisfied to have turned a stern test into a walkover.

At the end he was playing some glorious tennis against an opponent who had briefly entertained thoughts of the biggest victory of his otherwise anonymous career.

He went out in the first round last year to J�r�my Chardy, having reached the second round in 2009, losing to Viktor Troicki. Clearly this was not a happy hunting ground for him, yet he was giving Murray serious problems as he hit hard and clean from the baseline, enjoying the freedom afforded all outsiders.

Still, even in his most threatening moments, he did not look like an opponent who could sustain such excellence ? although Murray was adamant that he had at no stage taken him lightly.

"I didn't think I started that badly," Murray said, "maybe a little tentative. He was hitting it very big. Once I relaxed, I played very well. I did well to hang in at the end of the second set. There were a lot of rallies. I was going for a lot of big returns on first serve. Then I changed my mentality and it went better.

"It does change [under the roof]. There's no wind, no elements to contend with, good conditions to play in. I've played against him once before [two years ago in Valencia, winning in straight sets], and practised with him. I've seen him play some great matches but he can be a little up and down. He served very well on the break points and deserved to be in front at the time."

Murray was right: he did not play poorly, but he took fully an hour to find a convincing rhythm, by which time Gimeno-Traver was playing tennis some way removed from that which has earned him a world ranking of 59.

It is inconceivable, on the face of it, that a player who started the year by losing nine matches in a row should have troubled the world No4 on the Centre Court of Wimbledon, having won only two matches on grass in his whole career.

For a worryingly long time that was the case. The showpiece court had already experienced the frisson of a brewing upset when the defending champion Rafael Nadal was broken in the first set of the opening match before recovering to see off the 33-year-old American Michael Russell.

Gimeno-Traver took the first set playing surely the best tennis of his career. Murray came to life to stop the rot in the second, the third was a rout for Murray and the fourth went to the Scot in similarly clean-cut fashion.

He was not best pleased, though, when Gimeno-Traver seemed to take an inordinately long time getting attention for a muscle complaint on his right thigh as Murray was preparing to serve in the third set.

"Why do I have to wait for him?" he asked the chair. It did little more than postpone the inevitable, however. Murray was now playing at a different level.

There were moments in which Gimeno-Traver touched the heights Murray hit last weekend against Andy Roddick in the semi-final of the Aegon Championships but they flickered rather than roared to full flame, just as Russell had briefly inconvenienced Nadal.

He belted some withering forehands, served well and was a nagging presence on the retreat, forcing Murray to go for the margins before his own game had settled.

There were memorable moments from both players in the first half of the match, not many from the loser in the quick finish.

Murray had a break point as early as the fourth game but Gimeno-Traver saved with a spectacular forehand and held. Murray's serve was not singing as it had done at Queen's and he double-faulted and then saved two break points before hitting a forehand long and Gimeno-Traver had earned a 5-4 lead. Murray pushed a defensive lob just long to hand the set to a now excited Spaniard.

However, the strain of flying in such a rarefied atmosphere took its toll and Gimeno-Traver's tennis collapsed in the face of Murray's class.

The aces started going in and the easy points clearly gave Murray comfort after an anxious start. He broke to go 5-3 up when Gimeno-Traver cracked under some quality pressure, then served out for the set.

The final two sets went in a blur, curious addendums to an otherwise close contest. There was hardly a moment when Murray allowed Gimeno-Traver even a sniff of a chance to get back in the match and he finished with the most delicate, pinpoint dinks as Centre Court rose to acclaim him. Never in doubt.

Kevin Mitchell

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