Andy Murray emerged unscathed on a day of astonishing injury mayhem at Wimbledon as the world No.2 eased into the third round with a 6-3 6-3 7-5 win over Taiwan’s Lu Yen-Hsun.
Murray was never threatened by Lu’s lightweight game and the US Open champion breezed through in two hours, in the process avenging an embarrassing defeat against the world No.75 at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
While Murray would never admit it publicly, he would also have been pleased with the news from the Wimbledon treatment table, with French sixth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Croatian 10th seed Marin Cilic among the victims of an incredible run of injury withdrawals on Wednesday.
Tsonga and Cilic were Murray’s most likely quarter-final opponents, but instead the highest ranked player left in the Scot’s quarter is now Russian 20th seed Mikhail Youzhny.
As others were bemoaning the condition of the slippery All England Club courts, Murray kept his head and his footing, hitting 41 winners and serving 11 aces, to set up a last 32 clash with Spanish 32nd seed Tommy Robredo.
“I thought I kept my concentration well on serve and gave him very few opportunities after the first set,” Murray said.
“Each game I was putting a lot of pressure on his service games.
“If you can you want to win in three sets. It’s been a good start I’ll try and keep it going.”
Murray made history on Monday when he defeated Germany’s Benjamin Becker to become the most successful British man in grand slam history as he surpassed Fred Perry’s total of 106 matches won at the four majors.
But he has another more significant Perry achievement in his sights however as he bids to end Britain’s 77-year wait for a male winner of the Wimbledon singles title and he looks in the mood to do just that after extending his winning run on grass to 13 matches.