A garrulous Australian commentator waxed lyrical yesterday as Andy Murray and Laura Robson’s contribution to the Hyundai Hopman Cup became the excited chatter of the tournament.

Jeremy Bates may have played in the first match in this championship in 1988, but there has not been a British contribution to it as marked as that of its brightest 21st-century lights yesterday.

In singles, the pair are moving with increased purpose; as a team, they are having a whale of a time. The 6-3, 6-2 victory over Philipp Kohlschreiber and Sabine Lisicki, of Germany, was of an irresistible nature, the more so because Robson, 15, played as if one experience struggling to escape Murray’s shadow was enough for her. Now was the time for her to flower.

Of course, a touch of romance is lent to this event in that Robson’s forebears are Australian. She was born in Melbourne but her roots are firmly in Western Australia, as the seating section cordoned for her family members illustrates.

Yes, she did wobble against Kazakhstan in the first match. Like any young player with her levels of aspiration, she took the best bits from the experience and worked to improve them. She served for the first set of her singles against Lisicki, a player seven years her elder who is being tipped for the top ten, pugnaciously saved two set points in the eleventh game and led twice in the tie-break only to falter when, a touch naively, she interrupted a rally to call for a challenge when the ball clearly brushed the baseline.

Walking away from a 7-6, 6-3 defeat, she determined to come back strongly in the mixed and Murray’s merciless 6-4, 6-1 victory over Kohlschreiber set up the tie for another rousing doubles. So it proved as, for the second successive match, Great Britain raced to a 5-0 lead, although this time Robson was in her element, unfazed by Kohlschreiber’s determination to strike the ball as robustly as he could at her.

There was a stutter when Murray dropped serve at the start of the second set, only for Robson to spare her partner’s blushes, finally hitting an ace past Kohlschreiber as she held to 15 to secure the match.

Tomorrow, against Russia in the last of the round-robin matches that is a play-off for a place in the final, Robson, the world No 403, will meet Elena Dementieva, the world No 5 and Olympic gold medal-winner.