Fears About Murray Remain After Easy Early Rounds

All right so far - but, you have to say, it has hardly been a rocky road to the last 32 of Wimbledon for Andy Murray. Which may prove a problem.

Wins over two counter-punchers, the veteran Frenchman Fabrice Santoro on Tuesday and now Belgium's Xavier Malisse, who at nearly 28 is approaching the veteran stage, have eased him into the tournament. But all his two, straight-sets victories have done is confirm that what Murray, himself a counter-puncher, can do well he is doing well, rather than arm him for the tougher battles that he will certainly have to negotiate if he is to achieve his ambition of making it deep in to the second week.

It should get a little tougher on Saturday when he plays the German Tommy Haas, who had his best Wimbledon last year when he paid his ninth visit to the Championships and made it to the last 16 (at which point an injury ended his run when he was due to play Roger Federer). But Haas is 30 now and unless he can beat Murray quickly, which is unlikely, he will find it difficult to emulate last year's run.

Earlier this year Roger Federer was critical of Murray after being beaten by him in Dubai. Federer was not in the best of health at the time, which may have contributed to his defeat, but it is still worth recalling what he said: "I don't think he [Murray] has changed his game a whole lot since the first time I played him and I really thought he would have done. He is going to have to grind it very hard in the next few years if he is going to play this way. He stands way behind the court. You have to do a lot of running and he tends to wait for the mistakes of his opponent.

"I gave him the mistakes but overall, in a 15-year career, you want to look to win a point more often, rather than wait for the other guy to miss. Who knows, he might surprise us all."

Against Santoro and Malisse, Murray did a lot of waiting at the back of the court and had the added luxury of not really having to grind to stack up the points. Santoro, 35, is no longer the athlete he once was and Malisse remains the limited athlete he has always been, and both were at a huge disadvantage whenever a rally went beyond a few strokes.