Brian Viner: England's fans look to Murray, king of Scots, for sporting redemption

(DAVID ASHDOWN)

After the torment of watching England's footballers limp out of the World Cup, Andy Murray gave British sports fans something to shout about yesterday – and chant and shriek they did on Henman Hill. He won a hard-fought, four-set quarter-final in the men's singles at Wimbledon against France's Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

It was an extraordinary day on Centre Court, where earlier the Czech Tomas Berdych had had the effrontery to knock out the defending champion, Roger Federer. This is the first year since 2002 that Federer has not reached the Wimbledon final, and the crowd's shock was palpable as they watched him leave the great arena. "You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off," as the watching Sir Michael Caine might have said to Berdych – not place a bomb under our sporting certainties.

Afterwards, for once in Federer's illustrious career, the elegant six-times Wimbledon champion gave a decidedly ungracious press conference, blaming back problems and hinting, perhaps, that he is becoming uncomfortably aware that the sun is finally setting on his era of dominance over men's tennis. Murray, twice beaten by Federer in Grand Slam finals, is one of a handful of players capable of emerging sooner rather than later from the Swiss maestro's long shadow, but beating Tsonga was no easy matter.

The Frenchman presented Murray with his toughest challenge of the tournament so far, taking a set off the Scotsman for the first time, and initially living up to his passing resemblance to a certain boxer, which has earned him the nickname "Ali", by floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee. In the end, however, the world No 10 could not punch above his weight, and Murray, ranked fourth in the world, will now play the mighty Spaniard Rafa Nadal in Friday's semi-final.

The quarter-final unfolded in an arena that was at first strangely devoid of atmosphere. Centre Court emptied after Federer's elimination, and whether this was to accommodate toilet breaks, cream tea breaks, or breaks to phone home and report on what might be the beginning of the end of an era, the seats had still not filled up by the time the first set was decided, in Tsonga's favour, with a tie-break. Sir Michael and Lady Caine, however, had retaken their seats in the Royal Box.

In the press box, The Independent was seated between the man from Le Monde and the man from L'Equipe, and wondered whether the French, like the English, might have been looking to Wimbledon for some sporting redemption, following a footballing misadventure even more catastrophic than our own. But no, they said: in France it would never be possible for a tennis player's success to make up for a football team's failure.They are two separate sports, unconnected by popular histrionics. So it looks like it's just us, then.

Of course, Murray is as English as Rab C Nesbitt, and indeed he said during the 2006 World Cup that he would be supporting "anyone but England", so it is perverse to turn to him for sporting therapy. But there it is. It wasn't just saltires being waved on Henman Hill in the 23-year-old's honour yesterday, it was St George's crosses too.

Can he now go on to become the first Briton since Fred Perry in 1936 to win the men's singles title here? It was one of two questions everyone was asking as they filed away from the All-England Club. The other was: can Federer ever regain his No 1 spot? And the consensus was that the first answer was yes, and the second, no.

Even the great man himself seemed to offer a small concession to the waning of his exceptional powers. "Quarters is a decent result," he said glumly, of reaching the last eight. "Obviously people think quarters is shocking, but people would die to play in the quarter-final stages of Grand Slams." He was kidding nobody.