“HE’S Yahoo Serious,” an Australian journalist, who had never set eyes on Andy Murray before yesterday, exclaimed, likening the young Scot — the facial expression, fierce mop of red-brown curls, slightly off-the-wall air — to the Australian actor who landed on the front page of Time magazine in celebration of his cinematic portrayal of Young Einstein.

It does not take an Einstein, young or otherwise, to work out that Murray is one match from becoming a genuine focal point of the opening grand-slam championship of the year, a situation he relished the first time at Wimbledon last summer, taking David Nalbandian, of Argentina, to five sets on Centre Court, and his second, dispatching his prevous night’s dinner on the Grandstand Court while defeating Andrei Pavel, of Romania, in the first round of the US Open.

Here, it would be facing Lleyton Hewitt, the Australian anti-hero, although for Mark Petchey, Murray’s coach, getting one game ahead of the game is a dangerous proposition. Nonetheless, when Murray steps out to face Juan Ignacio Chela, of Argentina, tomorrow — a match the 18-year-old should lose but has the talent to win — the prospect of an evening date on Rod Laver Arena against Hewitt in the second round looms irresistibly large.

But Petchey is right. The statistics bear him out to an extraordinary degree: of the ten players who have finished the year with Murray’s ranking of 64 in the past decade, only two reached the top 50 and of those, Byron Black, of Zimbabwe, has retired and Karol Beck, of Slovakia, has a greatest claim to fame that he defeated Tim Henman in the Stella Artois Championships at Queen’s Club in 2004, after winning the LTA Surbiton Challenger, but still finished the year ranked No 45.

Of those who did not immediately live up to their reputation, Fernando Meligeni, of Brazil, who reached No 64 at the end of 1995 but fell to No 93 a year later, turned his career around, reaching the semi-finals of the French Open in 1999. A lot can come to he who waits.

It is a salutary moment for those predicting that Murray is about to waltz to every title under the sun and cover every event he plays as if the outcome is life and death. Henman was barely a blot on the landscape at 18, a skinny lad of little consequence who was said to be a decent doubles prospect. Murray is much more than that — although he has declined a plea from James Auckland, his compatriot, to play doubles in the main draw here — and both he and those around him know it.

Hence the fact that he was left alone after practice with Henman yesterday, a light-hearted affair that went a long way to confirming how much the pair enjoy each other’s company, and it was Petchey who preferred to answer the pertinent questions. “Andy is going to have to find his best tennis to come through against Chela,” he said. “It is going to be bloody tough.

“There are still people who question his fitness, but you can’t expect him to become like Rafael Nadal, who is a different muscle type — that is a totally unfair comparison. It is only May last year that he was a junior, we should remember that. He will be analysed every week in public, but it will take him time to find his way. I am looking at the next few years, not the next two weeks.”

Hewitt does not have such a luxury. The demands of the Australian public are as non- negotiable on Hewitt, who will be 25 next month, as those ever placed on Henman and, terrifyingly, in the future, on Murray by the British. But for him to match last year, when he reached the final here, would be astonishing. He remains desperately unhappy with the Rebound Ace surface, claiming that it resembles more the clay of the French Open than what is supposed to be a hard court.

None of these shenanigans, however, fazes Roger Federer, who remains a short-priced certainty. “I enjoy being the big favourite, not just the favourite, but the big one,” he said. “I always said, I prefer to be the favourite because the contender needs to do their work and this is where the favourite, he can see what the other guys do. I have to make sure I win my matches, but mentally I’m that tough that I don’t have a problem with that.

“We cannot underestimate because we all know guys ranked outside of the top 150, 200, who are dangerous opponents. I beat [Carlos] Moyà when I was No 300 and he was No 4. Everything is possible. You don’t know how to win a slam [for the first time] — you have got to create a way to do it, to keep a great intensity level up for a long time.”