Andy Murray insists he was ‘pleased with everything’ after victory over Ryan Peniston

With the royal approval of Roger Federer, Andy Murray breezed beyond Wimbledon’s opening round as the Brit praised his short, sweet dismissal of fellow Brit Ryan Peniston.

Federer, now 41, retired and sitting next to the Princess of Wales in the Royal Box, gave Murray a thumbs up after his routine 6-3, 6-0, 6-1 win over Peniston in two hours and one minute. Murray said it was a pleasure to play in front of ‘tennis royalty’ as he refused to slip on a day when the downpour in SW19 saw all play on the outside courts cancelled.

‘I didn’t start the match how I would have liked,’ said Murray. ‘But as the match went on, unforced errors, I cut them out, I was pretty ruthless at the beginning of the second and third sets.

‘There was no dip in intensity. I was pleased with everything, apart from the beginning.’

This was Murray’s most commanding win at Wimbledon since a 6-1, 6-1, 6-0 victory over Slovenia’s Blaz Rola in 2014. The Scot, traditionally a marathon man, said he was glad to have a shorter match for once: ‘I’ve had lots of pretty long matches early on in the tournament. Yes, you can recover from them, but it’s not like I had a really long match in the first round and the next one has been straightforward. I’ve had multiple long matches one after another.

Roger Federer (right) and the Duchess of Cambridge (left) watched on as Murray stormed to victory on Centre Court

‘Any time you get the chance to finish a match quickly and can conserve some energy is a really positive thing. It’s not necessarily confidence that I gain from it – it just means that hopefully the deeper I go in the tournament the fresher I will be.’

Murray will face either Greek fifth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas or 2020 US Open champion Dominic Thiem in the next round but said: ‘I hadn’t looked at the draw. I didn’t know it was Tsitsipas or Thiem until someone mentioned it.’

On his nerves, Murray added: ‘I always get nervous at the beginning of Wimbledon. I like that. I like to feel that way. If I was going on the court, felt flat, didn’t have any emotion when I’m walking out there, that would probably be wrong.’

The Centre Court crowd tried to lift the spirits of 268th-ranked Peniston, along with the occasional shout of ‘Come on, Roger’ in a nod to eight-time champion Federer, smiling whenever it happened. ‘I couldn’t really believe it,’ Peniston said of the experience. ‘I was trying to maintain the calmness, but it was impossible. It didn’t feel real at all. He was just relentless on every point. He played really well. I think why not? Why can’t he go and win it?’

On Centre Court’s VIP guests, a smiling Peniston added: ‘It was surreal looking up in the box and seeing them watching. It’s impossible not to have pressure when you have a legend like Roger Federer sitting there. But, no, it’s super cool.’