ANDY Murray has always taken an inordinate amount of pleasure in proving people wrong. His former coach Mark Petchey likes to recount a tale, for instance, of how he heard banging upstairs one night and found the teenage Scot up in his daughter’s room, engaged in the deadly serious business of a challenge to beat her record score on electronic dance game Bop-It.

Fifteen years have passed since then, of course. And the World No 1 has gained much in the way of maturity and wisdom. The 30-year-old even admitted after his bravura second round defeat of Dustin Brown on Wednesday that if he had his time again he would remind his younger self to enjoy the earlier part of his career more. But like Fred Perry, whose three Wimbledon titles he hopes to emulate this year, a key part of the Scot’s personality is that of the perennial outsider. Those competitive genes which have taken him to the top of his profession are still writ large in his DNA.

That is where his critics come in, the terrain having shifted so much since the Scot ascended to the top of the rankings in Paris last December that it is easy to forget that he is back here as both World No 1 and defending champion. Largely written off on the back of an illness and injury ravaged time during 2017, Murray took umbrage recently — understandably considering at the time of speaking he had outlasted them all at the top of the rankings — at John McEnroe’s comment that he was a “distant fourth” to the big three of Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic. Then the hip problem came along, and resultant fears as to whether he would even be fit to defend his title. Murray could hardly be said to struggle for motivation, but all this extra grist to the mill helped get his juices flowing.

“I think it needs to be a little bit of both — well for me anyway,” Murray revealed yesterday. “Throughout the course of a year you need to have the motivation yourself — to want to be the best and win tournaments, to want to train hard, all of those things.

“But there are different stages in the year where someone says that you can’t do something,” he added, “or people think that you’re struggling or that you might be coming towards the end. This is something I’ve been getting asked, just because I said one thing about potentially not competing at the top of the game for so much longer, or that I’m thinking about retiring, or how many more years I’m going to play, or am I starting to slip a little bit. So those things at different stages, they can help. Like before the French Open, when I’m in a ‘terrible’ place in terms of my game and I’m not playing well, having that little bit of extra motivation can help.”

So freely did the Scot appear to be moving against Brown on Wednesday that his opponent joked afterwards that he would like to see him when he was fully fit. While Fabio Fognini, his third round opponent, believes he has ‘the game’ to test him more fully — he may be forced into more lateral running as opposed to forward and back — generally when it comes to the interplay of the world’s best players there is no disguising it if an injury is in play.

“The thing is, if you’re playing against one of the best players and if they are carrying a genuine injury, you’ll pick up on that fairly early in a match in an individual sport,” said Murray.

“Maybe you’ll not notice it right at the beginning, but over a five-set match you’ll notice if there’s something that they aren’t doing well or if they’re serving a bit slower, or not moving forwards so well or to a specific side. You will pick that up.

“But most of the time, you’re going to say you’re fine, you’re OK, because it would be pointless saying ‘Yeah, my leg’s really sore and I can’t move to my backhand side’.

“Because then obviously that’s all anyone’s going to do [hit the ball there]. So I wouldn’t tell anyone if there were specific things that were giving me trouble during a tournament.”

With all respect to his first two opponents here, Alex Bublik and Brown, Fognini is a different animal. A player who Murray has come up against since they were juniors, the Italian may strut about like a preening primadonna but he can crack winners off either flank and has won half of their six meetings, the most recent coming on the clay of his home slam in Rome last season.

Another win came on Davis Cup duty in Naples, but Murray should hold more advantages in a match in front of his home crowd, on grass.

“We’re the same age and we grew up playing each other pretty much since we were 12, so I’ve known Fabio a long time as well as his family,” said Murray, “because his dad, mum and sister have come to a lot of tournaments over the years.

“On the court he can sometimes be a little bit different out there and show his emotions a lot — but then so can I.

“You can tell how much they want you to win on Centre Court because they live every point from the very first game, often groaning or sighing when you make a mistake. You need to try and block that out for sure, but then it’s part of the Centre Court experience.”

Fognini is convinced he has ‘the game’ to edge ahead on the personal head-to-head and record what could be his biggest ever win.

Let’s hope the Italian is another man who Murray delights in proving wrong.