Just when you thought it was safe to come out from behind the sofa, it begins again. It’s Wimbledon, it’s a British favourite, it’s time to get back to those long, dark teatimes of the soul. You always knew, didn’t you, that they’d put Andy Murray third up on Centre Court, just to drag the agonies on into the gloaming, ramp up the anguish and the ratings.

It was somewhere deep into the second set that I heard the first call of “C’mon, Tim”. Oh yes, a fine sense of British tradition: make the public suffer. That’s your job as a British favourite. Where Tim Henman led, so Murray has to follow. It’s important to win matches, but it’s equally important to make sure that it’s never easy. Suspense, that’s what you go for.

Murray began what is only his third Wimbledon by taking on Fabrice Santoro, of France. Murray won 6-3, 6-4, 7-6, but don’t get any idea that it was easy. I remember a strange occasion when Murray beat Henman in a tournament in Switzerland in 2005 and Henman said: “I’ve handed on the torch. Or is it the baton? Whatever it is, I’ve passed it on.”

The tradition moves on to Murray, then, and it involves a great deal more than playing tennis and being cheered. It also extorts the most colossal emotional investment from the British public, and you don’t do that by strolling at your ease through matches. You need to mix skill and commitment with the most bewildering errors, you need to mix strength of will with a rare taste for self-destruction.

Murray began with serene confidence and glorious artistry, and broke his opponent in the third game. It looked as if it was all going to be a breeze — and perhaps the usual agonies were just something to do with Henman, or with Englishness. But no: it’s also something to do with Murray and Scottishness. A Brit at Wimbledon: bury your face in that cushion.

For Murray then chucked away the sixth game with a couple of unforced errors at the net. Instead of dictating the nature and the course of the match, he got himself suckered into his opponent’s love of slice and spin and deception. Murray is half artist, half stubborn git, and both sides of him united in chasing the wrong values.

At one stage, the two of them played a rally in almost complete silence; so soft and subtle were the touches that you could scarcely hear ball on racket.

Murray then snapped out of it and started giving the ball a bit more welly, and eased away with the first set. So what do you think he did next? Well, ask yourself what Henman would have done.

He promptly lost his serve in the opening game of the second set and, on game point, he played that shot known and loved by Henmanwatchers for a decade and more: the suicide leave, the shot when you withdraw your racket and watch the ball land in.

But Murray has his own signature shot and he showed it to us good and proper: the Demented Drop Shot. Murray is a drop-shot addict. He loves to see his opponents twitch and half-start to run and then shrug in bemusement, fooled again. Murray plays the shot very well, too. But he also plays it appallingly badly and at the worst possible time; whenever he needs to ramp up the tensions, he gives us the Demented Drop Shot.

Santoro relished the occasion hugely. He is aged 35, this is his thirteenth Wimbledon and his 64th grand-slam tournament. He knows his way about and he loves to tie up his opponents in a web of deceit. He and Murray played out a series of great points.

Murray mixed brilliance, inventiveness and touch with moments of total aberration. The torch, or baton, has indeed been passed on. Santoro stretched him to a riveting tie-break in the third and final set, one that featured the Demented Drop Shot of the Day, and also a gloriously fortuitous net-cord winner. Nothing was ever safe, nothing was ever certain, the Centre Courters shouted their c’mons; the succession seems assured.

Murray and Henman are very different players, with very different natures, and they come from very different places. Murray favours that unmade-bed look; Henman was always turned out with perfect hospital corners. What they have is very different, but what they lack is the same. And that is the gift of authority. Perhaps that goes with being a Brit at Wimbledon.

I have seen Henman play brilliantly; I never saw him boss a match, dominate every exchange, crush an opponent psychologically. Murray exhibited the same lack yesterday. Well, he is only 21, perhaps the gift will come to him in time. Or perhaps it never comes to Brits in SW19, we’ll have to wait and see.

But Murray walks away with a win under his belt and the feel of the big court under his feet and in his heart and mind. These are all good things. He will need them. He has Xavier Malisse next — and Malisse qualifies for that traditional Wimbledon class of the Dangerous Floater.

Murray survived, then, and so did his audience, more or less. But there’s a great deal worse to come, believe me. Still, as we raise our face from the cushion, the message is clear: sofa, so good.