Graphic: How Murray can beat Roddick | Graphic: SW19 in 60 seconds

In Roger Taylor’s day, it was the tale of more than 600 letters delivered to the All England Club, and a postman with the sorest back in SW19, as the housewives of the nation wrote urging the Yorkshireman to the holiest of grails, the Wimbledon final.

Three times he reached the semi-finals and three times, against Wilhelm Bungert in 1967, Ken Rosewall in 1970 and, most cruelly of all, as a 31-year-old to Jan Kodes in the boycott year of 1973, Taylor was cut down.

Today, as tweeters Twitter, texters text and websites are replete with messages of inspiration, the desire is that Andy Murray can do what was beyond Taylor, Mike Sangster and, more lately, Tim Henman since the Second World War and guarantee a partisan presence in the men’s final.

As tributes go, the one paid to him by Taylor, 67 and director of tennis at the Wimbledon Club, across the road from the All England Club, cut to the chase yesterday. “It is the innate ability of champions to be able to handle the pressure, it is the difference between Murray and every other British player,” he said. “Andy is fighting for his life and he will not give up.”

Today, on Centre Court — where Murray has played every match at Wimbledon since the second round on his debut year of 2005 — he takes on Andy Roddick, whose yearning for this title extends to 2001 and may outweigh that of the British No 1. Two finals have brought defeats by Roger Federer, but Roddick has never been in better physical shape, his game more robust and settled, his mentality more positively grooved.

The American has lost six of eight encounters with Murray, including the past three, and he is trying to tell himself that they really do not matter. Neither does the three-set mauling he was handed by the Scot on this pasture in the third round three years ago, perhaps Murray’s finest performance on Centre Court. Roddick has changed, but so too has Murray.

They are unrecognisable in physical terms from a couple of years ago, Murray adding muscle, Roddick losing some of the fat that had begun to form around his middle. Murray is the better player, Roddick has the bigger serve (that element is narrowing), Murray is the better mover, Roddick’s movement has improved out of all recognition. “This year I have come here expecting rather than hoping, which is a big difference,” Roddick said. “I am more positive from a lot of angles. This game is more and more about legs and less about shot-making. When I came into the top ten I was probably the only big server. Now everyone can serve humungous. It’s about movement, it’s about legs. I am in a good place.”

From this championship last year, Murray’s rise has been rapid, the one blemish being the Beijing Olympics, when he did not quite buy into the extravaganza. Since then, there has been a first grand-slam final, at the US Open, the Masters title in Madrid, qualification for the Masters Cup in Shanghai, where he beat Federer in a round-robin match, a final in Indian Wells, the title in Miami, his finest clay-court season, the AEGON title at Queen’s Club, West London, and now a Wimbledon semi-final.

Looking at the present No 1’s honed physique, Taylor recalls the days when he was considered the iron man of the British game, when laps, chin-ups and push-ups were the limit of vigorous exercise and you had only yourself to tell you to push harder, try harder, run harder. “I got it from the Australians, who were always the iron men of the game,” he said. “Whatever height or size they were, they made the most of their bodies.

“This is a very macho game. When Murray walks on court, Roddick will look him up and down, there will be an immediate mental picture, a concept of what the opponent can do, and that is tremendously important. Is he a guy that’s going to get tired? No. Is he going to be found wanting in a long match? No.

“Andy’s got a great team. I’ve known Matt Little [his fitness trainer] from my time with the Sutton Tennis Academy. These are people with vast knowledge who never had the chance to put it to good use because no one in the game would take their expertise and run with it. Other players may want to get fit, Andy’s got himself fit.

“Because it happened to me, I am sure Murray has been thinking about this situation for months. I used to spend my Christmases working out how I was going to prepare for Wimbledon, who I was likely to play, how they would shape up.

“Where Andy is in a different position is that he is now playing people he has beaten, I was usually playing those with better records against me than I had against them. In the 1970 semi-final I met Rosewall, who was a nightmare, he was like [Rafael] Nadal, but without the top spin.

“It is about holding himself together, dealing with the nerves that are kicking in all the time however much you wish they weren’t. Some people who have never been there might think that professional athletes should not be tense, but we were and they are. It is no walk in the park against Roddick, but Murray knows what he’s got to do to win it and, more importantly, he knows that he can.”

The other semi-final today would have warranted more acreage than it is going to receive, given the special element from a British perspective. All three of the grand-slam meetings between Tommy Haas and Federer have gone the distance: in the fourth round of the 2002 Australian Open, Haas prevailed 8-6 in the fifth set; when they played there four years later, Federer triumphed, as he did in the French Open last month. It could be just as enticing today.