Number one seeds in the draw and through to the Wimbledon quarter-finals of the mixed doubles, Jamie Murray and Martina Hingis have made an instant connection on court.
The Grand Slam-winning players played for the first time together on Saturday having been given a bye into the second round of the draw and Murray is now just three wins from emulating his achievement of winning the title alongside Jelena Jankovic ten years ago.
The Scottish-Swiss duo have barely practiced together, other than warming up together before each of their two matches, but made light work of 16th seeds Roman Jebavy and Lucie Hradecka in between the rain showers.
Their 6-3 6-4 victory sets up a clash with either Jocelyn Rae and Neal Skupski, or Ekaterina Makarova and Max Mirnyi in the last eight, and Murray said his choice of partner was simple.
“We’ve played two good matches so far, so that’s good - the key is just to pick a good doubles player, that’s rule number one,” he revealed.
“For me to play with her is a great opportunity and I’m really enjoying it. She is an amazing player, her record speaks for itself, there’s nothing else to say about that.
“The more we play, the better we’ll get, or at least I hope so.
“I’ve played with a lot of partners but you just have to find what works for you. We’re not trying to overpower players and blast our way through the draw, we have to think about it a bit more and I think that’s more fun to watch.”
The pair have 20 Grand Slam doubles titles between them - three for Murray and 17 for Hingis - and when the Swiss Miss made contact with the Scot to suggest teaming up, the 31-year-old had no hesitation in saying yes.
“It was cool for me, I was excited about it,” he added. “I haven’t played mixed at Wimbledon the last couple of years because the workload for the men’s is a lot, with five sets.”
And while Hingis can also boast five Grand Slam singles titles to her name - all won before the age of 20 - the respect between the pair is clearly not just one way.
“He’s one of the best doubles players in the world, it’s a simple transfer of skills to play together with me,” she said of her new partner.
Elsewhere on a rain-affected Tuesday at Wimbledon, British brothers Neal and Ken Skupski made their first ever Grand Slam quarter-final in the men’s doubles.
The sibling pair beat Marcus Daniell and Marcelo Demoliner in four sets, winning the one they needed between rain showers having led 2-1 when play was stopped due to bad light on Monday evening.
And with the pair breaking new ground in SW19, it has forced a rethink of their accommodation.
“We were in an Air BnB at the start of the first week, then Ken’s wife and children came down so he moved out, and we only had it booked for a week - which shows our expectations!” said younger brother Neal.
“We moved out and I’ve moved to a hotel and he’s moved to a separate one in Chelsea.
“We booked for two days and now we’re going to have to book for a couple more, we’ll just see how it goes.
“It was quite noisy on court 17 for our first round and I had a few friends there from high school, they were shouting our names and then went into Yaya Toure-Kolo Toure!
“On Court 3 on Monday the support was great too, and for our opponents as well, but I think as Scousers we are quite rowdy and we overpowered their fans in the end.”
The duo now face Marcelo Melo and Lukasz Kubot in the last eight while Tuesday’s rain meant Heather Watson and Henri Kontinen’s third round mixed doubles match was cancelled postponed until Wednesday.
Sportsbeat 2017