Healing hands help Murray recover dominating performance

THERE were 40 minutes of panic for Andy Murray fans when he lost six games in a row to the Italian Andreas Seppi on Wimbledon’s centre court, before the magic hands of a physio allowed the Scot to recover his dominating form and reclaim the match in the fourth set.
Murray clinched his place in the last 16 beating the 25th seed Seppi 6-2, 6-2, 1-6, 6-1. Murray was cruising until Seppi asked for medical treatment on his ankle, but when play resumed it was Britain’s number one who was in agony, clutching his shoulder and screaming “useless” at himself.
For a full 40 minutes Seppi won game after game, before it was Murray’s turn to receive treatment. The physio had him stretched out on the grass of centre court, working his stiff shoulder and back, to immediate effect. Once Murray was back on his feet, so was the centre court crowd, and the 28-year-old broke Seppi’s serve three times, taking absolute control of the final set.
Afterwards, Murray explained that he had been receiving regular treatment on his shoulder, and the first break in play had seen it stiffen up. A good-humoured Seppi said the fate of the game was all down to the physio: “It looks like if he touches you, you can’t lose any more.”
Murray goes on to face the 23rd seed, Croatian Ivo Karlovic, in the fourth round on Monday afternoon.
He won’t be joined by Britain’s Jamie Ward in the last 16. Ward, who entered Wimbledon as a wildcard, forced Vasek Pospisil into a fifth set, fighting all the way. It was a long and thrilling deciding set, eventually taken by the Canadian player 8-6.
However, Jamie Ward’s Wimbledon performance will see him placed amongst the world’s top 100 for the first time, and pick up around £77,000 in prize money.
Heather Watson, the British woman who pushed world number one Serena Williams right to the end of their centre court game on Friday evening (July 3) can also be rightly proud of her display over the course of her three Wimbledon matches. She lost to Williams, who admitted she hadn’t heard of Watson but will surely now not forget her, but won the second set and took the last to a seventh game.