Murray Earns Shot at Fellow Young Guns

Andy Murray's sometimes brilliant performance to beat Tommy Haas means he is into the second week of Wimbledon - and it will be nothing like the first. For one thing, the 21-year-old will start meeting players from his own generation, having seen off opponents in the first three rounds whose average age was more than 30 (which is pretty old for Wimbledon, where a thirty something has not won the men's singles since 1975). For another, as he has already found out to his cost, the burden of expectation will feel like double the load the top weight in the Grand National has to lug around Aintree.

After faltering in the second set, Murray came through powerfully to win 6-4 6-7 (4-7) 6-3 6-2 to make it twice now in three Wimbledon appearances that he has gone beyond the middle weekend. He was absent last year with a wrist injury, but when he reached the second Monday in 2006 his nerve failed as he lost heavily to the Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis.

He is likely to be hardened by that experience when he steps out tomorrow against Richard Gasquet, of France, who at number eight is seeded four places ahead of the British number one. Victory over Gasquet will secure him his first quarter-final place in a grand slam. Murray will also take strength from having disposed of a player of the caliber of Haas, 30, who, despite a career often blighted by injury, has been as high as number two in the world and beat Murray earlier this year to level the score in their head-to-head matches at a win each.

The sun was out yesterday and a number of sporting legends watched from the royal box, including various footballing knights and oarsmen Sir Steve Redgrave and Sir Matthew Pinsent, who, unusually, were sitting side by side rather than line astern. A perfect setting, in other words, for something a little special from Murray - and to start with and to finish with he did not disappoint. It was just in the middle that things went a bit awry.

He served quite beautifully to win the first set, dropping just eight service points, and when he opened a 4-2 lead in the second set he seemed to be heading for his third straight-sets victory of the tournament. But his rhythm inexplicably deserted him in the eighth game when for the first time in the match he conceded more than two points on serve and Haas, having broken back to 4-4, went on to win the tie break.

The match turned decisively after Murray saved his serve in a 16-point game at the start of the third set in which Haas failed to convert two break points. Heartened by this, Murray rediscovered his service accuracy, and the touch and brilliance with which he had illuminated the opening set, and Haas's resistance first slipped and then disintegrated.

Murray's Centre Court appearances on the middle Saturday are becoming something of a fixture at which he never seems to disappoint. On this day in 2005, he announced himself when, as a callow 18-year-old, he gave way to David Nalbandian, the 2002 runner-up, only after outplaying the older and stronger man for two sets. After watching that match from the royal box, Sean Connery offered the view that, even without the help of a stuntman, his countryman could one day defy the steep odds against a football-loving Scotsman winning Wimbledon.

Two years ago, Murray played brilliantly to upset Andy Roddick on the first Saturday and would never admit it but almost certainly derived a little sliver of delight from the fact that the match was played concurrently with the England football team losing on penalties to Portugal in the World Cup.

Now he has done it again. In those spells in which he played well, some of his strokes were quite stunning. There were two in particular, with which he achieved his first service break in the third game of the opening set. First, he stretched to pick up a forehand and send an outrageous pass beyond Haas's reach; and on the next point he even surpassed this with a running backhand that left the German stranded as he charged forward for what he and everyone watching supposed would be an easy put-away volley.

Yesterday's matches completed the line-up of eight fourth-round contests that will take place tomorrow - and both halves of the draw have opened up nicely for the two favorites, particularly Roger Federer's half, where three players seeded in the top eight failed to survive the first week. Novak Djokovic's defeat in the second round was particularly surprising, even if the man who beat the third seed was Marat Safin, a winner of two grand slams. David Ferrer, the fifth seed, and Nalbandian, seeded seven, who turned in an inexplicably poor performance against Canada's Frank Dancevic in the first round, were the other two potential threats removed from Federer's path.

Having disposed of Djokovic, Safin took out another seed, Andreas Seppi, in a match that ended very late on Friday evening. Safin completed the victory that put him into a fourth-round meeting with the doughty Stanislas Wawrinka, of Switzerland, at 9.25pm. The light was dreadful, the sort of conditions that might, on another occasion, have sent Safin into a right old strop.

Croatia's Mario Ancic, the other dangerous floater in the top half of the draw, also made it two wins against seeded players when he saw off Ferrer. He now meets another Spanish seed, Fernando Verdasco, tomorrow and if he were to win that he would play Federer or Lleyton Hewitt in the quarter-finals on Wednesday. Surprisingly, Ancic might be in two minds about whom he would prefer it to be, with a match against Federer certain to revive happy memories for the Croat. In 2002, having qualified for Wimbledon, Ancic became the first teenager to win on his Center Court debut since Bjorn Borg in 1973 - and the man he beat was Federer. It was Federer's third first-round defeat in four Wimbledons. Since then, though, the Swiss has not lost a match on grass, anywhere. Ancic certainly has the weapons to make it another uncomfortable afternoon for Federer if they were to stage a Center Court reunion.