Andy Murray has been out of tennis for so long, as a Brit I almost forgot he existed and claimed a Wimbledon title twice and as recent as 2016! This is actually a slight exaggeration with his last major tournament ironically being Wimbledon back in 2017 when he made an unfortunate exit to Sam Querrey in the Quarter Finals indeed due to his notorious hip injury. Even with such a major injury Murray played an entire Wimbledon tournament with the problem all the way through to the Quarter Finals and still managed to take Querrey to 5 sets there.

But all this waffle from me about Murray is a classic sign that the British still see him as the main flag bearer and hope for Wimbledon this year, even when he’s been out of action for what will almost be a year and with no sign he will actually be fit for Queens or Wimbledon.

With British hopes therefore in limbo in steps power player Kyle Edmund, a whole different style of player to Murray, far more aggressive on his forehand where he wins most of his points.

I’ve been watching Kyle over the past 3 years as he’s made huge progress in terms of his consistency and ability transitioning from the Challenger circuit to ATP. Over this time he has matured as a player hugely claiming scalps as impressive as Richard Gasquet, Roberto Bautista-Agut, David Goffin and Novak Djokovic. His best result to date is progressing to the Australian Open Semi Finals where he went down in 3 straight to Marin Cilic.

Edmund is only 23 years of age, so he’s probably got another 3 to 4 years before he peaks but even at his current age he has shown he has the tools to take out any opponent on the day which is going to mean plenty of eye candy moments at Wimbledon for Edmund fans this year. When we contrast him to Andy Murray he clearly has a different style of play but you can also see he’s developing a more dogged and tenacious side to his game lasting longer in the rallies no doubt inspired by Murray himself.

He clearly is going to need to keep working on his ball retention and return of serve if he wishes to win his first Grand Slam tournament. I would definitely say he doesn’t need to develop anymore before he wins his first ATP title soon, he almost accomplished this in Morroco of this year where he surprisingly fell short in the final to a Spanish player ranked almost 100 places lower than him. But I think Edmunds ambitions lay way beyond an ATP title.

If we look at Edmunds weaknesses right now I would say there is one clear factor above any other he still needs to work on, his serve…I know he has been working hard on his serve with coach Fredrik Rosengren along with his return of serve but watching him in several ATP tournaments this year he still has a long way to go to build up his consistency. For me if you can hold you serve most of the time the return game becomes much less pressurise and allows a player to really go after your opponents serve with little caution needed. Kyle needs to land a higher percentage of powerful first serves in to be able to progress to a final of a Grand Slam still.

Without getting too far into the technical side of play though, Edmund is clearly Britain’s best future hope of more grand slams and there’s something very likeable about his character. He is very grounded and controlled as a person which may not be everyone’s cup of tea. What has struck me about him is his composure even when he has been broken or faced match points in very high profile matches this year. He has his emotions well in check which has allowed him to prevail in some very tricky moments in the big games. This is in contrast to Andy Murrays more moaning and grunting persona bringing a breath of fresh air to the men’s British tennis game.

As a keen tennis fan who loves to watch the more aggressive players go after a ball, I have to say Kyle is great fun to watch at times and if your looking for a surprise player to make the semis of this year’s Wimbledon Kyle may just be the one to do so.