As Rafael Nadal’s jolting withdrawal of Friday began to stop shaking, the necessary Wimbledon commotion settled around two leading beneficiaries who didn’t want to be known as leading beneficiaries.

When Roger Federer labelled No 1 Nadal’s absence “disappointing for me� and Andy Murray deemed it “a shame,� they might have spoken as prideful competitors or they might have spoken as two shy souls about to receive the onslaught of attention in a tournament with a sudden two-man narrative.

Federer just became “a big favourite� according to Murray, but the Swiss might be too giddy to care about such inconveniences as he savours his long-craved French Open title and maintains: “There’s a lot of weight off my shoulders since Paris, so I’m entering tournaments, I guess, a little more relaxed these days.�

Murray just saw the buzz around this tournament go from heavily Andy Murray to stark-raving-wildly Andy Murray as the 22-year-old Scot aspires to edit one of the most durable sentences in the English language, the one that goes, “No British man has won the Wimbledon singles title since Fred Perry in 1936.�

‘Ready to win’

As the first British man to win the Queen’s Club preparatory event since Bunny Austin in 1938, he’s even wearing this timeless new Fred Perry attire, even if the earthy, small-town sort from Dunblane looks somewhat misplaced in it. “I feel like I’m ready to win a Grand Slam now, whereas last year I might not have been,� the 2008 US Open finalist said.

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