Wimbledon 2017: Andy Murray knows he must improve to go deep into tournament ahead of Benoit Paire meeting

The defending SW19 champion put in a patchy display against Fabio Fognini but is confident that he will improve

Andy Murray's last defeat to a French player came over two years ago (Getty)

When you are French it is sometimes important to get your priorities right. Benoit Paire’s quickfire victory over Jerzy Janowicz here on Friday gave the world No 46 the chance to assess his next opponent, but watching Andy Murray take on Fabio Fognini did not figure in his plans for the evening.

“I’m not going to watch,” Paire said. “I’m going to stay with my family, with my friends. I want to go back home. I rent a house not far from the club, so I’m going to make a barbecue with my friend, [Edouard] Roger-Vasselin.”

With Murray beating Fognini in four sets, a cynic might suggest that Paire had no desire to remind himself of the skills that have helped the world No 1 win his last 25 matches against French opponents. The last time Murray lost to a Frenchman was when Gilles Simon beat him in Rotterdam more than two years ago.

Paire, a controversial character who has a reputation for smashing rackets and clashing with authority, lost his only previous meeting with Murray at last year’s Monte Carlo Masters. The Scot was well below his best that day, but his recovery after losing the first set and going two breaks down in the second launched what proved to be his most successful clay-court season.

“Sometimes it only takes a match or two matches to start feeling good about yourself to gain confidence and after Monte Carlo I just felt way, way better about my game,” Murray said as he looked back on that encounter. “I obviously ended up having a great season after that. I hope the match against him has the same impact, but I hope I play better than I did that day.”

It would be easy to resort to national stereotypes in trying to understand why Murray has such a good record against French opponents. While many of the French players have great flair, they have often struggled in the face of Murray’s relentless commitment.

“I don’t know why I’ve played well against them,” Murray said. “There have been a lot of matches I’ve won against French players from losing positions as well, so it’s not like I’ve killed them in the matches that I’ve played. There have been a lot of close matches and I’ve just managed to get through, but I’ve no idea exactly why that is.

“Against Benoit, it will be important for me to serve well. He has a big serve himself, plays a lot of serve-and-volley. When you’re playing guys that are maybe a bit up and down, if you can keep consistent pressure on them by serving well and not giving them the opportunities on your own serve, that pressure builds over time and you have to capitalise when they have little lulls. I will try to do that.”

Paire is through to the fourth round for the first time in his seven visits to Wimbledon. In the past the 28-year-old Frenchman has not hidden his dislike of both the tournament and of grass.

Four years ago he smashed all his rackets after a straight-sets defeat to Lukasz Kubot. “I don’t like Wimbledon,” Paire told L’Equipe, the French daily sports newspaper, at the time. “When I go on the court they tell us we have to be careful with the playing surface, but the courts are not so good. Once I got a $1,000 fine for saying 'merde’. Here all they like is handing out fines. Maybe thanks to that they will be able to fix the courts.”

It will be Paire's first fourth round appearance (Getty)

Paire has also clashed with his own national authorities. Last year he was sent home from the Olympic Games in Rio because the French team said he had spent too much time away from the Olympic village and had been disrespectful to the competition, saying it was of little importance.

However, Paire appeared to be in a happier mood when asked about the prospect of facing Murray here on Monday. “Honestly it's good to play Murray here,” he said. “I think it's something different to play Murray in Wimbledon. Maybe on Centre Court. I don’t know if sometimes he plays on Court One but normally it’s on Centre.”

He added: “I think I can do something good against him. I think my game is good.”

Murray, meanwhile, was happy to have come through against Fognini despite a patchy performance. He knows he will need to play better if he is to go deep in the tournament.

“I played better at the end of the fourth set than I did for most of the match,” Murray admitted. “Even in the first set and the third set it wasn’t like I played great. He made mistakes at those moments and he was a bit up and down, like in the 5-2 game in the first set, when he served three double faults in a row. That’s nothing to do with my good play.

“When I needed to [find] my game [I did]. That’s positive and hopefully I get better from here. Finishing strong like that gives me that little boost going into the weekend.”

Having struggled with his hip injury in the build-up to the tournament, Murray is happy to have a two-day break before he next plays.

“It can be valuable if I use it well,” Murray said. “I need to make sure I practise properly and it can be beneficial away from playing matches just to settle your body down and recover a bit. But there are also things I want to work on as well, so it’s not like I just take two days’ rest. I do a lot of stuff over the weekend as well and hopefully I feel a little bit better about my game on Monday.”

He added: “It’s important that I make sure I use [the break] properly but make sure I keep my mind focused on my tennis when I’m here, then get home and get away from it as early as possible so I can rest up and relax.”

Murray welcomes the chance to spend a little more time with his daughter Sophie, though he insisted he would not be spending the weekend “sitting at home relaxing”. He explained: “We’ll get more time in the morning and just before she goes to bed but there’s still a six, seven-hour period in the day where we’re in here doing our stuff.”