In a corner of Greenwich on Thursday, Roger Federer was waxing lyrical about Andy Murray.
Having had his own issues with surgery, he has sympathy for Murray’s slow and sometimes painful ascent back up the rankings.
As he watches from the TV studio come his favourite tournament, Federer was left hoping Murray “wins many, many rounds at Wimbledon in a couple of weeks”.
To anyone who would listen, for the past few weeks the 36-year-old Briton has been saying he believes he can have a long run at Wimbledon for the first time since hobbling out at the quarter-final stage in 2017 to begin the road to hip surgery.
With each match he wins on grass, the target begins all the more believable. He has his first title on grass since the second of his two Wimbledon wins – last week’s Surbiton Challenger – and Thursday’s 6-3, 7-5 result over Hugo Grenier was his seventh straight victory on the surface.
Should he win the title, the 125 ATP Tour points will help him creep back into the world’s top 40, ever closer to his pre-Wimbledon aim of a place among the 32 seeds for his home grand slam.
It seems plausible that a long run could be in the offing come SW19. After all, few people know the surface as well and none will have more support.
But there are caveats. So far, he has been playing three sets rather than the grand slam best-of-five format. And his body hasn’t always held up brilliantly in the wake of marathon five-setters in this second stage of his career.
Then there is the matter of how much competitive tennis he is playing at present in his quest to make it to the top 32 come the start of July.
He readily admitted: “It’s been a lot of matches for me. I’m an old boy now so it takes me a big longer to recover but I’m feeling good.”
At present, there don’t appear to be any ailments. He’s been serving well and moving with ease around the grass at both Surbiton and Nottingham.
With respect to the likes of Grenier, there will be far tougher opponents to come and, should Murray miss out on seeding, it’s perfectly conceivable he could draw a player of the ilk of, say, Novak Djokovic in the first round.
That’s what makes seeding so important and, in truth, it all rests on events at Queen’s. There are 500 points on offer for the winner, which could potentially catapult him to inside the top 25.
A losing finalist (300) or even a semi-final berth (180) might be enough. Anything less and he will simply have to hope the Wimbledon draw simply falls kindly for him.
It’s not just simply about points though. The more playing time he gets on the surface, the better. And also, the more different opponents he faces the better in terms of preparing him for what might lie in wait over the course of a grand slam fortnight.
And, as he put it, the surface at Nottingham is as close to Wimbledon week two as anywhere he’s played. Now, he just has to find a way to make that week two.
