Murray and the Monfils substitute

Yes Andy Murray, the tournament's number four seed had arranged with France's Gael Monfils to have a hit of tennis on the 23rd of January 2012. They had booked the court for enough time to play three four or even five sets should they feel the need. However there was a mix up in the bookings and Monfils had to postpone the match. He sent in his place a mate of his from Kazakhstan - well not really a mate but the guy who had the nerve to defeat the 14th seed in five sets in a thrilling third round match on Margaret Court Arena.

Mikhail Kukushkin presented at long odds to win anything off Muuray - even a coin toss would take some courage. He overcame that fear and joined Andy for the toss of the coin, and at that stage the match was fairly even. Then it took its first turn - Murray broke the Kazakh serve. No massive weapons in Mikhail's tennis arsenal, in fact no weapons of any kind to hurt Andy.

The fourth game brought an element of surprise when Murray dropped his guard for a second and with it his serve to reduce his advantage to 3-1. Amends were made when he broke back and like a true Scot kept the rest for himself including the set 6-1. Whatever shots the 4th seed required to employ today he did with utmost efficiency, but in reality nothing much was being proven in terms of how far progressed Murray was for the championship.

The second set began with Murray winning the first two games then losing his serve for the second time in the match. Angry at this Andy raced through the rest of the nonsense posing as a contest in set two, bringing his big serve and winning forehand to the table, to repeat the 6-1 scoreline of set one. Proving himself not to be a merciful chap, Andy could be seen calculating the third set demise of Mikhail.

The plan did not require execution before the premature retirement of Kukushkin due to a knee problem at 0-1.

Andy Murray 6-1 6-1 1-0 (ret) his quarter final opponent Tsonga or Nishikori.