McEnroe blasts Kyrgios after Murray loss

7-5, 6-1, 6-4 is the final as he moves into the last eight without having dropped a set.

Murray was tormenting his opponent, though, one lob as he held serve to level things up, so teasingly played that in his bid to recover Kyrgios achieved the rare feat of knocking the ball clear out of the arena.

Murray has now won nine of his last ten matches after breezing through Queen’s and going down in the final of the French Open to Novak Djokovic.

This was the most eagerly-anticipated match of the fourth round and the first real test of Murray’s title credentials.

Murray loves to have a target at the net and when he has time to take aim before pulling the trigger he is usually deadly.

Outspoken and polarising tennis player Nick Kyrgios will need to significantly alter his attitude into one that at least somewhat resembles that of a professional athlete trying to be number one, says Andrew Gaze.

“It’s not any different this year than it’s been any of the other years I’ve been here”. Can the Australian cause a massive upset or will Murray continue his march toward a second Wimbledon crown?

Murray got his tactics spot on from the start. “The rest of the match was pretty pathetic”, he said after his fifth career loss to Murray completed a full grand slam set.

Murray, who hit 36 winners, produced a pair of superb backhands on the Kyrgios serve, though, winning himself three break points at 6-5.

“He is improving all of the time”, said Murray.

“As soon as I lost the first set, I just lost the belief”, said Kyrgios, who prepared for the match by watching Australian Davis Cup captain Lleyton Hewitt play doubles.

The British No 1 bided his time in a close opening set which featured no break points until the 12 game.

Murray again stood up for Kyrgios following more negative headlines after he earned a code violation during his second-round win over Dustin Brown and was then involved in a tense exchange with reporters.

Johnson, the champion on grass at Nottingham this summer and playing in his first fourth round at a Slam, was comprehensively out-played in the first two sets.

This was his fourth consecutive day of action, with his matches against Dustin Brown and Feliciano Lopez both affected by rain while Murray had the luxury of the Centre Court roof. “If [I] play as focused and solid as today, I have a chance”.

“Just a little soft still”, Kyrgios said.

“I believe that for him to have played the matches he has and to be as good as he is, you have to love the sport”.

He added: “When things get tough, I’m just a little bit soft”.

“One week I’m pretty motivated to train and play and really looking forward to getting out there”.

Murray will face swashbuckling Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the 12th seed, in the quarterfinals.

“You can learn from the matches you play against him, but every match is different in individual sport and if you put in a bad performance you can easily lose”.