ON Wednesday evening, Andy Murray opened a letter from the Queen congratulating him on his recent success at Queen’s Club, and wishing him luck for the Wimbledon Championships. Twenty-four hours later, and he produced a straight-sets win over Latvian Ernests Gulbis that suggests he is on the brink of joining tennis royalty.

Murray made just five unforced errors as he took less than an hour-and-a-half to complete a 6-2, 7-5, 6-3 victory on Centre Court, and set up a third round clash with Viktor Troicki of Serbia tomorrow.

With favourite Roger Federer having cruised through his first two matches, last night’s performance laid down a significant marker in terms of Murray’s chances of becoming the first British male to win at Wimbledon in 73 years.

Whisper it, but the Scotsman’s display, particularly in the first and third sets, was as good as anything produced by the Swiss number two seed in the opening four days of the championships.

“I thought I played really well,” said Murray. “I served well for the whole of the game and I varied my shots like I wanted to. It was much, much better than the first game and that’s pleasing.

“It’s hard to say whether that’s my best performance at Wimbledon, but it’s up there.

Because there weren’t that many moments when I was under a lot of pressure, it’s easy to say I played great, which I felt I did.

“I thought I played really well against (Radek) Stepanek in my first year at Wimbledon, and I came through some tough matches last year.

“But that was a different type of match to a lot of the games I play.”

While Murray only produced fleeting glimpses of brilliance against Kendrick, yesterday’s display was packed with sensational shot making.

His serve was especially effective – a run of 19 successful points on serve helped seal the opening set – and Gulbis was handed precious few chances to threaten a break as the British number one allied immense power to even more impressive placement.

Once into a rally, Murray’s shot selection was also much improved from his first-round display, with a series of sliced backhands piling pressure on Gulbis’ ground strokes and leading to a gradual breakdown in the Latvian’s play.

Had Gulbis been allowed to go for his shots, Murray could have found trouble against one of the biggest hitters in the game.

As it was, the Scot clinically manoeuvred his man around the court, and simply waited for the errors to come.

They came at the end of the second set, with Gulbis netting to lose his serve at 5-5, and again at the start of the third set, when Murray broke in the third game via a magnificent backhand passing shot.

That would have been the shot of the game, had it not been for a staggering backhand sliced lob that sailed from one corner of the court to the other towards the end of the first set.

Murray is now the only British player left in either singles draw after Elena Baltacha failed to repeat her firstround heroics and slipped to a tame defeat to Belgian Kirsten Flipkens.

Baltacha, who was the only domestic female to make it into round two, succumbed 7- 5, 6-1 to a player she had beaten on both previous occasions they had met, and Murray challenged the Lawn Tennis Association to admit to failings in the British game.

“I’m a fan of tennis, so I would like it if we were better at tennis in this country,”

he said. “We have been in the same situation for quite a long time.

“The women are definitely getting better in terms of their rankings, but it’s important that everyone understands that this is where we are at.

“We can’t go along accepting the results we have had.

The people in charge of running things have to come out and say ‘This is not good enough and this is what we are doing to get better’.”

Baltacha started well enough yesterday, taking advantage of a succession of double faults to break into a 2-1 lead. Her own serve began to wobble at that stage, though, and after Flipkens broke back to level at 3-3, Baltacha quickly found herself serving to stay in the opening set.

She surrendered meekly, netting a weak forehand drive on set point, and proceeded to go into meltdown as she lost the opening five games of the second set.

She saved three match points in order to prevent a second-set whitewash, but the reprieve proved temporary as Flipkens calmly served out the match.

“It’s disappointing because I knew this was a good chance to progress,” said Baltacha.

“But for some reason, it just didn’t happen.

“I just couldn’t keep it going, but that’s the thing with tennis. It’s two steps forward and one step back.

“But you have to look at the bigger picture.

“A lot of people think everything revolves around Wimbledon, but it’s only one of 30-35 tournaments we play in a year.

“There are four or five girls fighting for a top 100 spot and all our rankings have gone up this year. That hasn’t happened for a long time now.”