 Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 28 Jun 2004 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 28 Jun 2004 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 28 Jun 2004 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 28 Jun 2004 |  Photographer: Susan Mullane
Date: 28 Jun 2004 | |
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| 28 Jun 2004 - Wimbledon - Eleanor Preston | |
| Murray breaks Wimbledon duck |
Second seed Andrew Murray expunged his poor Wimbledon record by marching through to the second round, courtesy of a 36 64 62 win over American Mykyta Kryvonos in the boys’ singles.
The Briton has never previously won a match at his home junior Grand Slam and he was understandably relieved to have finally got a win on the board.
“I lost in the first round the last two years so it was a good feeling to win. There was a lot of pressure on me last year and there was this year too, but I think I’ve learned to deal with it better,” said 17-year-old Murray. “I was more relaxed on court than I was last year and hopefully I can continue that for the rest of the tournament. It was a pretty slow start today because I was a little bit nervous and obviously I’m not that match-fit because I haven’t played that many matches lately, but once I got in to it I thought I played pretty well in the second and third sets.”
Murray was runner-up to France’s World junior No.1 Gael Monfils at the Wimbledon warm-up event at Roehampton last week and has been in resurgent form since returning from five months off with a knee injury. “It was very inflamed and I basically couldn’t do anything for months. I couldn’t actually bend my knee at all. I only started playing again the last couple of months. Everything feels good now, it feels fine on the court. ”
Monfils and Murray are seeded to meet again, this time in the Wimbledon boys’ final, and Monfils also kept up his side of the bargain by winning his first round match against another Briton, Tom Rushby 76 64.
“When we played in Roehampton it was a pretty tight match so hopefully I’ll get to play him in the final here,” he said. “I don’t think he’s better than everybody else, even though he won the Australian Open and the French Open, I had a close match with him last week and obviously he struggled a little in his match today, so he is beatable. I think it’s just a confidence thing, with him winning a lot of his matches.”
Murray says he knows what it takes to turn junior success into senior stardom. “hard work,” he said flatly. “A lot of juniors once they get to the top they just relax and think that everything is going to happen straight away. I’m not like that. I’m quite level-headed. I’m just going to keep working hard.”
In other results America’s Brendan Evans whipped through his first round match, beating Italian Andrea Arnaboldi 62 60. Britain’s Miles Kasiri caused something of an upset when he knocked out El Salvador’s Rafael Arevalo Gonzalez with a 60 76 victory. GD Jones of New Zealand was also in giant-killing mood, beating Karan Rastogi 64 64.
In the girls’ competition, top seed Michaela Krajicek (NED) danced through her first round match against Agnes Szavay of Hungary, beating her 63 61. Krajicek, whose brother Richard won the 1996 men’s title, is amongst the early favourites for the girls’ title, along with Israel’s Shahar Peer. Peer, the reigning girls’ Australian Open champion, beat Regina Kulikova of Russia 63 62.
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