"I feel like I played my best-grass court tennis this year. It gives me good confidence"
Tuesday 3 July 2018 15:22, UK
Kyle Edmund is in confident mood as he prepares to take centre stage at Wimbledon in the absence of former world No 1 Andy Murray.
Murray decided that best-of-five-set tennis was not the right move at this stage of his comeback from hip surgery on Sunday, meaning he will miss the championships for the first time since 2007.
But the two-time champion will be hoping to see British No 1 Edmund produce the type of tennis that carried him to the Australian Open semi-finals in January.
The 23-year-old has also made third-round appearances at the US Open and French Open to go with his Melbourne
run and Edmund has welcomed the extra attention and expectation on his shoulders as he prepares for a first-round clash with Australian qualifier Alex Bolt.
He said: "I feel like I played my best-grass court tennis this year. It gives me good confidence. But it's always don't get too ahead of yourself. You always have to earn your victory. I'm always keeping that in mind. Trying to do the best I can to be positive, in a good head space."
Edmund's first task will be to better his very modest record at Wimbledon, with last year's first-round victory over British qualifier Alex Ward his only success.
He takes on 25-year-old Bolt, who is ranked 204th and has never won a main-draw match at a Grand Slam.
The pair have never met before, but Edmund is happy to learn on the job, saying: "There's always something out there, Tennis TV, YouTube. It doesn't really matter about prep, you have to go out there and play your game. Ultimately that's what I try to concentrate on. You tend to do more match solving and fixing than the actual game plan."
A possible third-round meeting with Novak Djokovic looms large, and it would certainly be a disappointment if he did not get that far, with either Japan's Yuichi Sugita or American Bradley Klahn his scheduled second-round opponent.
The other British man in action on Tuesday is 19-year-old Jay Clarke, who will make his singles debut against Ernests Gulbis after being awarded a wildcard.
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Our next tennis action comes from the German Open in Hamburg. Watch the action live on Sky Sports Arena from Monday, July 23 from 10am.
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