Murray keeps British faithful happy

By Pritha Sarkar

LONDON (Reuters) - The now familiar tide of Murray-mania swept across Wimbledon on Tuesday as Andy Murray began his bid to end Britain's 73-year wait for a men's singles champion in glorious sunshine at the All England Club.

The world number three appeared to have taken a leaf out of former local favourite Tim Henman's Wimbledon manual as he teased, tortured and finally thrilled the expectant crowd with a 7-5 6-7 6-3 6-4 first round win over Robert Kendrick.

Kendrick had talked up his chances of gatecrashing the British party by declaring: "I'd love to disappoint a nation."

Luckily for the fans the American, who entertained the crowd with his acrobatic antics, dived out with a forehand error.

John McEnroe's assessment was that Murray had produced "a B performance" but he did conjure a moment of magic. Sprinting towards the baseline, he flicked a forehand winner over his shoulder which even brought a smile to the dour Scot's face.

However, Murray agreed with McEnroe's verdict.

"He (Kendrick) doesn't give you a whole lot of rhythm, I could have returned better and I didn't hit my groundstrokes as well as I would have liked... but it got better," he said.

With the sun beating down on southwest London, record crowds again flocked to Wimbledon for the second day running as Murray made his much-anticipated appearance on Centre Court.