Ah the serve, the serve. Maria Sharapova's has forsaken her and Andy Roddick's did not come up to scratch, whereas Andy Murray's is suddenly like the stone from David's sling, whose aim and impact strikes right between the eyes. If the woeful capitulation of Sharapova, the 2004 champion, was hard to bear, Roddick's grass-court dream was then shattered by Janko Tipsarevic, the Serb who wears funny glasses and a strip of plaster across his nose to help his breathing. The fresh air of the day was all Murray's.

Bar a sketchy French Open, when she might have lost in the first round and subsided to Dinara Safina in the fourth, nothing could have prepared Sharapova for the dismissive manner of her 6-2, 6-4 defeat by Alla Kudryavtseva, her fellow Russian, who lost in the first round of the Edgbaston Trophy a fortnight ago to Katie O'Brien, from Yorkshire, the first set to love. Sharapova had won the Australian Open and was a constant presence in finals, semis and quarters elsewhere on the road. This was truly a humbling experience.

Perhaps the time is right for Sharapova to move out of the shadow of her father, Yuri, and strike for gold in different company. Theirs is a loving union, of course, but she looks in need of something fresh from a coach with no family ties. Not to put too fine a point on it, when the world No3's game goes, it goes in an extremely ugly fashion. The competition is wise to her now.

Similarly Roddick, whose eighth attempt to win Wimbledon this was; he was left looking as bereft as he had been when Murray clumped him from pillar to post in the third round two years ago. Never had Roddick failed to get beyond the second round, but Tipsarevic's 6-7, 7-5, 6-4, 7-6 victory was full of virtuosity, improbable “gets” and evocative celebrations that once more showed up the American as a player who has plenty of power but not the requisite court craft to win this particular tournament. Tipsarevic, the world No40, is coached by José Perlas, a Spaniard once said to have been very keen on seeing what he could do for Murray.

During his growing pains as a professional, the Scot struggled to find a consistent range and effectiveness on serve, where a 40 to 50 per cent success rate on his first delivery was a norm that meant he was for ever having to play catch-up. Yesterday, in a 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 win over Xavier Malisse, the former semi-finalist from Belgium, in conditions that were often desperately tricky, he was over 70 per cent at one stage and averaged out at a very respectable 67per cent.

Murray with a serve is a different kettle of fish. He is just outside the top ten in games won this year when returning serve, a part of his game acknowledged as among the more dangerous out there. When all the pieces come together, he is fearsome, and on Centre Court yesterday there was a luxurious certainty about his tennis, his demeanour, everything. Malisse had the bearing of a loser long before his 93 minutes was up.

“I still want to get the strength in my shoulder to maintain it over five sets so that I can keep going the whole way through tournaments,” the British No1 said. That will be new territory for him, but if he can throw in the odd 134-136mph serve that he delivered to oohs and aahs from the throng yesterday, the task will become easier.

No one can argue that Murray is not every inch the distinguished young man these days. A concerted effort has gone into making him look less like an unmade bed: his clothes are minted and ironed, his hair is short and businesslike, his face is bereft of grizzle and he is totally white, even down to the protective brace on his left ankle for which his management company had to send away to the United States and worried if it would arrive in time for Wimbledon's opening days. It did.

Murray's game is an enchanting mix, he can do everything with the ball and his love of the drop shot is well known. When it is done to excess, it looks silly, when he bides his time and picks his moment, it is an evocative shot. He dozed for just a moment in the second set against Malisse, losing his serve from 40-0 up in the sixth game, but promptly recovered the break when the Belgian followed a horrid smash with a poorly crafted backhand slice.

The shot of the match arrived in the seventh game of the final set, when he bounded across the baseline and not only reached a backhand that Malisse must have thought was an outright winner but, at full pelt, manoeuvred his own backhand through an improbably narrow gap between racket and tramline. He served out to love, although the final act lasted longer than it ought. Murray served down the middle and Lars Graff, the umpire, mistook Malisse's raised hand for a signal that he was not ready.

Graff called “let, first serve” and if Malisse's mind was not already back in the locker-room, he might have gone along with the call and faced two more deliveries. Instead, he had challenged, and there was a minute's delay before Hawk-Eye showed that the ball had touched the back of the service line. Game, set and match.