Defending champion Andy Murray breezed through his Wimbledon opener on Monday with a confident 6-1, 6-4, 7-5 win over baby-faced Belgian David Goffin.
Third-seeded Murray, bidding to become the first British man to successfully defend a Wimbledon title since Fred Perry in 1936, hit eight aces and 28 winners.
“I thought it was a very high standard of match, we played some great rallies, and I was glad to finish it in three sets because he was playing very well,” said Murray.
“Sometimes you can win in three and not play well, but in terms of the way I struck the ball, it was a good start.”
The British star was never broken as he brushed past the 23-year-old Goffin, the world number 104, with new coach Amelie Mauresmo.
Murray, who has made at least the semi-finals on his last five appearances at the All England Club, goes on to face Slovenia’s Blaz Rola.
The Scot was joined in the second round by Czech sixth seed Tomas Berdych, the 2010 runner-up, who came from a set down to beat Romania’s Victor Hanescu, 6-7 (5/7), 6-1, 6-4, 6-3.
Latvian 12th seed Ernests Gulbis, who made the French Open semi-finals, also went into the second round by defeating Estonia’s Jurgen Zopp 7-6 (9/7), 7-5, 7-6 (12/10).
Spanish 18th seed Fernando Verdasco, who took Murray to five sets in the quarter-finals in 2013, was knocked out by Australia’s Marinko Matosevic 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2.
Sergiy Stakhovsky, the Ukrainian who send seven-time champion Roger Federer crashing to a shock second round loss last year, beat Argentina’s Carlos Berlocq 6-3, 6-3, 6-3.
Azarenka wins first match after comeback
Former women’s world number one Victoria Azarenka won her first match since January on the same court where she suffered a knee injury which ended her 2013 hopes.
Eighth-seeded Azarenka won 6-3, 7-5 against Croatia’s Mirjana Lucic-Baroni on Court One.
This year, the former Australian Open champion has been plagued by a left foot injury which kept her off tour from Indian Wells in March to Eastbourne last week where she lost her opener to Camila Giorgi.
Azarenka now goes on to face Serbia’s Bojana Jovanovski.
“The toughest part of being off court was not knowing when I would be back on court, it was day to day, sometimes I made progress, sometimes there were setbacks,” said Azarenka.
In other matches, US 18th seed Sloane Stephens, a quarter-finalist in 2013, was defeated by Russian former top 10 player Maria Kirilenko, 6-2, 7-6 (8/6).
Kirilenko, who had won just one match all year after a lengthy battle with a knee injury, claimed victory on a sixth match point.
“I’m sad my streak is broken,” said Stephens, who has reached the fourth round at least at her last six majors.
“It feels like the end of the world now, but fortunately it’s not.”
Australian 17th seed Samantha Stosur fired 13 aces but still suffered another Wimbledon nightmare when she slumped to a 6-3, 6-4 defeat to Belgium’s Yanina Wickmayer.
Japanese 43-year-old Kimiko Date Krumm who made her debut 25 years ago, went down 3-6, 6-4, 7-5 to Russian 22nd seed, Ekaterina Makarova.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 24th, 2014.
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