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The reaction of the normally mild-mannered said everything.

are usually stoically poker-faced, so much so one can't help wondering if it's in the contract, but when Murray hit two huge forehands onto either side of the baseline to win a point early in the third set against , the Spaniard almost needed restraining.

He roared, lifted himself from his seat and opened his arms as if to say "that's the way to do it." As a former French Open finalist, he should know.

Earlier a good amount of head-shaking/scratching/holding appeared to have Corretja in a state of fractured anxiety. His man was being eaten for petit-dejeuner by an inspired opponent and there was nothing he could do.

Berdych hit the ball so cleanly one imagined a new supersize sweet-spot on his racket of choice. .

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Familiar names, old foes.

It's always interesting to amble around the outside courts at Grand Slam tournaments to spot players we've come across in recent years on duty.

Following in the lower reaches of the competition allows us to talk to these lower-ranked players, hear their stories and dreams for the future. They can often provide more articulate interviews than some of our own team members.

Step forward who played in Liverpool last September and

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It needs enormous mental strength at any level to regroup after losing seven games in a row, and I thought was really impressive.

I don't know how many times you've lost seven games on the bounce but it happens to me frequently, only I don't tend to go on and win - I just think the clubhouse is too tempting a venue by that point.

than losing the previous six games.

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I thought we saw on Thursday, but was that really her?

in the third round and, despite signs of improvement, was way too inconsistent to live with the power-hitting of the Russian.

then came into the interview room with a peculiar summary: "I didn't think I did too much wrong out there. I was a little bit unlucky with so many line calls on my serve and just everything going out."

A lot did go out. A lot hit the net too. was excellent but for Ivanovic there is much to do.

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When it will end the culture of big-name, big-money coaches in British tennis. The era of excess will be over and expenditure on the balance sheet will look a little less top heavy.

In 2006, the new LTA regime fell in love with the concept of spending riches on celebrity coaches. A big-spend for quick wins.

A holy trinity of Annacone, and was hired on a combined salary of more than £1m per year.

Gilbert would coach Andy Murray, Lundgren would coach the Davis Cup team and Annacone would be men's head coach. By the end of the year, all three will be gone.

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When , I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

The was just a few weeks away, followed by a better-than-ever chance of winning a first , and then the incentive of anotherin Beijing - all stated ambitions.

Completely out of the blue, all that was over.

She became . It was nothing short of incredible.

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Isn't it amazing, the journey Andy Murray has travelled from 2005? , then , and a few months later.

Here we are now, five years later, and he's

Monday's in the first round of the French Open was the Scot's seventh in his last eight best-of-five matches, and that's an incredible record.

It's the reason he goes in the gym, runs up and down South Beach in Miami, and it's why he got back into full training in the last month or so after giving it a little bit of a miss in February.

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Just a few moments after we were talking up on the radio - "one of the in-form players, a threat on the clay, an outsider for the French Open" - the Latvian was out.

, after tweaking his hamstring in the fourth game of the second, was the on-court story of the day in my mind.

Everybody was talking about Gulbis -

also sensed an attractive story to follow over the fortnight. Here was a lavish talent with a big personality, not afraid to speak his mind, and an equally big game capable of causing upsets.

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is sitting behind a desk fiddling with the microphone, as usual.

I have yet to discover whether this is a nervous twitch or, perhaps more likely, a more appealing pastime than talking to a room full of middle-aged hacks.

Anyhow, is pondering the finest clay-court performance of his career so far.

A "tough question" apparently, which is taken as a compliment, and it takes him a while to seize upon a shortlist.

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On the face of it, there appears nothing lacks.

more than $50m in career prize money and the seductive-yet-subjective label, applied by many former champions, as the best player of all time.

He is embracing family life with wife, Mirka, and twin daughters, Myla and Charlene, who are seasoned international travellers at nine months old.

Certainly, he is all smiles as we meet in a first-floor room at the , completely free of entourage, his white tracksuit top and black baseball cap boasting the now familiar "RF" logo.

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is in a continual state of underachievement, as any regular reader of this blog may have noticed, but even more obvious is the fact things would be much worse without the efforts of thousands of people who devote their lives to the sport.

The vast majority of these coaches, teachers, organisers and volunteers have no control over how the riches are spent. They get mystified, along with the rest of us, at the frequent comings and goings from head office. Buzzwords like "pipelines", "pathways" or "frameworks" tend to pass them by.

But people who have worked for 20-30 years in British tennis are still trying to make a difference, often in increasingly trying circumstances. .

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