Any worries of Andy Murray being bogged down by the extra pressure of being the clear favourite following Novak Djokovic's early exit vanished away in a hurry as the No.2 seed showed his ruthless streak against good friend Nick Kyrgios. As good as Murray played in the three-set dismantling of the Australia, there were those signs of Kyrgios crumbling once he saw any sort of grip on the match slip away, with John McEnroe accusing the youngster of not giving it all on Centre Court, the most hallowed of courts in the sport of tennis.
After a tight first set, which Murray broke at the last time of asking to win 7-5, the Brit ran away with the next two 6-1, 6-4 to win the fourth round match in a mere one hour and 43 minutes.
While Kyrgios showed plenty of fight in the first set, the second and third was one-way traffic, and McEnroe believes he knows why.
"Boy, I expected Murray to win, but not in one hour and 39 minutes (actually 43)," McEnroe said from his commentary box according to The Guardian.
"This is not doing our sport any good. What's he's giving, 80%? This is Wimbledon, Centre Court. You've got to give 110% to try to get back into it."
Kyrgios has been tipped for greatness for a while now, ever since he beat Rafael Nadal on this very same Grand Slam a couple of years ago, but McEnroe believes the 21-year-old is a long way away from being a top-ten player, let alone from being great.
"He's got a lot of thinking to do, a lot of work to do," McEnroe added. "It's not just the mental part, he needs to work on his game. He doesn't know what it takes to be a top-10 professional to win Grand Slams.
I'm hoping he sees the writing on the wall before this becomes chronic, irreparable, because to me it's getting to that point."
The point where Murray finds himself, though, is a whole lot better. The Brit's tennis has been fantastic over the first four rounds, with that serve working really well and the 2013 Wimbledon champion will need all of those weapons when he plays his quarterfinal match against the dangerous Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on Wednesday.
"I'm fully aware of how difficult my next opponent is," Murray said. "I know Tsonga is one of the best grass court players in the world.
"If he plays well, I'm not on my game, I can lose that match for sure. If I play the level I'm playing at just now, I give myself a chance in most matches. But the trick is to keep that up, to maintain that level for the whole two weeks."
In the other matches on Centre Court on Monday, Federer swatted aside the tricky-on-grass Steve Johnson 6-2, 6-3, 7-5, while Serena Williams celebrated the American independence day with a 7-5, 6-0 demolition of Svetlana Kuznetsova.
