THE Miami Heat is more than just Andy Murray’s favourite basketball team. It is also the atmospheric condition in which he spends a sizeable period of his time. All those epic training blocks in the Florida sunshine paid dividends on a sweltering south-west London afternoon yesterday.

It might not have been Melbourne, Dubai or even Miami, but amid on-court temperatures in excess of 41°C, enough to cause the tournament to enforce special rules to guard against heat exhaustion in women’s matches, the Scot was made to sweat during this 6-4, 7-6 (7-3), 6-4 victory against Mikhail Kukushkin, the world No 58 from Kazakhstan.

A second set in which his serve was surrendered on no fewer than three occasions would have been enough to induce a hot panic in most individuals. The Scot, however, has ice in his veins. A combination of all that fearsome conditioning work and the confidence gleaned from his most successful ever start to a year helped him keep cool and keep on winning. He maintains his decade-long record of never having lost in the first round at Wimbledon. He hasn’t fallen at the first hurdle of any Grand Slam since early in 2008.

They say mad dogs and Englishmen are the only ones who venture out in the midday sun but the Scot’s attempt to reclaim his Wimbledon title did begin fully an hour ahead of schedule. With defending women’s champion Petra Kvitova taking just 35 minutes to book her place in the second round, and Roger Federer being detained just 67 minutes by Damir Dzumhur of Bosnia-Herzegovina, he was on at the height of the afternoon.

England football manager Roy Hodgson took his place in the Royal Box, keen to see a sportsman clad in all white who also has a genuine chance of winning something.

The England women’s football team, currently in the last four of the World Cup in Canada, do so too so perhaps it was fitting that each of these players should have a female coach in their corner. While the heavily pregnant Amelie Mauresmo alongside new boy Jonas Bjorkman and his father Willie in the Scot’s player’s box, sat uncomfortably in the baking heat, just over the way was Anastasia Kukushkina, wife and coach of the Kazakh player.

That was a somewhat random coincidence, even if Murray joked that he could never envisage a scenario where he ends up being coached by his new wife Kim. It was also a rather unkind draw, as Kukushkina’s husband is a fairly rough customer to run into at this stage of proceedings.

This was the 27-year-old’s third appearance on Centre Court, and he had previous for making things difficult for the big guns in this arena. Back in 2011 he extended Roger Federer into a first-set tie-break before winning in straight sets. In the third round last year against Rafael Nadal, Kukushkin even won that breaker, then went down in four.

With the faintest breath of wind giving respite from the conditions, Murray just about shaded the first set. A rasping Kukushkin forehand took the very first point, signalling a prowess from that wing that would become a recurring theme. But the Scot’s first set was basically flawless, making just two unforced errors all set long. He survived a mini moment of stress at deuce, 3-3, then ratcheted up the pressure as his opponent served to stay in the set.

This he was unable to do when Murray converted his second set point, a lengthy rally ending when a Kukushkin backhand flew long. It seemed as though the Kazakh would wilt, especially when Murray raced into a 3-0 second set lead. But things might have got a too comfortable. The rest of this set would become a duel in the sun.

The world No 3’s concentration dropped and his first-serve percentage did too. Murray later bemoaned “ten or eleven” missed first serves in a row which encouraged his opponent to be aggressive. While his second delivery appears to have improved under Bjorkman, the Scot lost his serve three times in that frantic second set, and Kukushkin was two points away from levelling matters on the scoreboard before it was his turn to crack under the pressure of the Centre Court cauldron.

From 6-5, 30-0 in that second set, a forehand which flew long displayed a moment of weakness and the Scot, who compared himself to a sniffer dog in a campaign for the World Wide Fund for Nature, smelled blood. He duly broke back, and throttled his Kazakh opponent 7-3 in the tie-break.

Unlike in the women’s competition, there is no provision for a ten-minute break from the heat between sets two and three. Perhaps introducing this rule might be an idea. After the drama of that second set, the third was a slog. Murray was the more solid player, and when he broke for a 3-2 advantage, the ethnic Russian bankrolled by oil-rich Kazakhstan had almost run out of gas.

He had one last chance to make himself a nuisance. Murray was required to save two break points — from a final total of seven — as he served for the match. But when one final errant Kukushkin ground stroke flew into the tramlines, he could finally escape into the shadows and soak in the new All England Club ice baths. His hot streak continues.