Considering it took years for the Wimbledon crowd to genuinely embrace Andy Murray, Aljaz Bedene has made a decent start to winning hearts and minds in his first tournament at SW19 as a British player. After his epic first-round comeback victory against Radek Stepanek, a former world No8, the 25-year-old talked of the inspiration and emotion that competing in front of home fans gave him. On Thursday, he again played with passion and no little skill against Viktor Troicki, the 22nd seed, but the Serb came through in four competitive sets: 6-4, 3-6, 6-2, 6-4.
It would be hard to describe Court 12, where the match was contested in the late-afternoon sun, as a cauldron.