Having had his personal points with surgical procedure, he has sympathy for Murray’s sluggish and generally painful ascent again up the rankings.

As he watches from the TV studio come his favorite event, Federer was left hoping Murray “wins many, many rounds at Wimbledon in a couple of weeks”.

To anybody who would pay attention, for the previous few weeks the 36-year-old Briton has been saying he believes he can have a long term at Wimbledon for the primary time since hobbling out on the quarter-final stage in 2017 to start the street to hip surgical procedure.

With every match he wins on grass, the goal begins all of the extra plausible. He has his first title on grass for the reason that second of his two Wimbledon wins – final week’s Surbiton Challenger – and Thursday’s 6-3, 7-5 outcome over Hugo Grenier was his seventh straight victory on the floor.

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Should he win the title, the 125 ATP Tour factors will assist him creep again into the world’s prime 40, ever nearer to his pre-Wimbledon intention of a spot among the many 32 seeds for his dwelling grand slam.

It appears believable {that a} long term may very well be within the offing come SW19. After all, few folks know the floor as properly and none could have extra assist.

But there are caveats. So far, he has been enjoying three units quite than the grand slam best-of-five format. And his physique hasn’t at all times held up brilliantly within the wake of marathon five-setters on this second stage of his profession.

Then there's the matter of how a lot aggressive tennis he's enjoying at current in his quest to make it to the highest 32 come the beginning 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 current, there don’t seem like any illnesses. He’s been serving properly and shifting with ease across the grass at each Surbiton and Nottingham.

With respect to the likes of Grenier, there might be far more durable opponents to come back and, ought to Murray miss out on seeding, it’s completely conceivable he may draw a participant of the ilk of, say, Novak Djokovic within the first spherical.

That’s what makes seeding so vital and, in reality, all of it rests on occasions at Queen’s. There are 500 factors on provide for the winner, which may doubtlessly catapult him to inside the highest 25.

A shedding finalist (300) or perhaps a semi-final berth (180) is perhaps sufficient. Anything much less and he'll merely should hope the Wimbledon draw merely falls kindly for him.

It’s not simply merely about factors although. The extra enjoying time he will get on the floor, the higher. And additionally, the extra totally different opponents he faces the higher by way of making ready him for what would possibly lie in wait over the course of a grand slam fortnight.

And, as he put it, the floor at Nottingham is as near Wimbledon week two as anyplace he’s performed. Now, he simply has to discover a strategy to make that week two.