WE have all missed seeing Andy Murray playing in the early rounds at Wimbledon this week. But that is not what he is about.

Andy’s mentality is hard wired to entering events to win them. If he genuinely felt he wasn’t conditioned on a match court to challenge for the title here then his decision to withdraw on the eve of the tournament was the right call in the end. But having waited so long to make the decision, it must have been an extremely difficult one for him.

If anything, it is a good sign. Whenever I hear Andy speak about his situation, the noises I get is that this is someone who is confident of returning to a very high level, someone who is going to be challenging for these events again in the future. And that is really encouraging.

Playing matches is different from anything else. I can’t put it any better than Andy did the other day. He said: ‘I’ve been playing tennis all my life, but I just need to remind my body what it is like to play’. First it was best of three, now it is best of five.

He just needs to keep going, banking more matches. Playing a couple of days in a row, then going again. Nothing replicates matches. It is a bit like a pre-season in football, where you do the hard yards and get matches in your legs. It is not just about the physical side, the doing. It is also about how you are reacting to situations, mentally problem-solving.

Andy is scheduled to play in the US Open and I don’t see any reason why he won’t be as competitive as possible there. But I am also sure that if he got to the US Open and felt the same way as he did here that he would have no problem deciding not to play. The fact he was obviously close to be playing here suggests that after a couple of months he should be even more ready. So I am very confident for him going into the US Open.

In his absence a lot of focus falls onto Kyle Edmund but so far I think he has handled the pressure really well. If anything, he is benefiting from it.

Kyle has been very open about how he has soaked up all he could ever have wanted to soak up from being around Andy. He started at quite a young age - he was doing pre-seasons with Andy when he was still in his teens and how good is that for a young guy? Andy would have been top four, top two at that time, but he did training blocks with him in Miami and Dubai. There were Davis Cup weeks as well, and all the time in between. Andy is so good with young players, you can now see that now with Aidan McHugh and Katie Swan.

Kyle is his own man now, with his own team around him. He is of an age, 23, where he is a a bona fide top 20 player, who has a semi-final appearance at the Australian Open to draw on.

Of course he is a different kind of player to Andy. Shorter points, that is what he is good for. His serve is much improved - the stats have been unbelievable in these first two rounds, as they were in Melbourne. That helps so much because you get a more neutral, more defensive return back, then if he gets one sniff of that forehand, he can do everything with it, he can go down the line, or whip it cross court. If he keeps serving like that, he is going to give himself way more chances.

How does he beat Novak Djokovic? Well, first he can watch the video of his win against him in Madrid back. But obviously he is going to have to play very well. While Novak isn’t playing as well as he was, he is not that far away. You know Novak is going to be very consistent, he is going to try to control the middle of the court as much as possible and get a lot of balls back in play. I wouldn’t read too much into his injury.

Novak is a great returner, so it is more important than ever to post good numbers on serve, vary it up a lot and hunt down that forehand. You don’t want to end up playing a tonne of long rallies. If it does go to a long rally now, Kyle is much better equipped than before to deal with that, recover and go again. He is physically in better shape, better in defence and moving great, but he still has look for that forehand and control the points. That is his game.

I have known Kyle since he was about 12, 13 years old. He was always one of the better ones in Britain. Back then he was coached by Richard Plews and John Black, but his parents were right to think not too much about results. The advice was always to keep going after your forehand. Sometimes you can get concerned about junior results and get concerned about not missing, just to win a few more junior matches. But you watch all the French and Spanish players ripping that forehand, if you are blessed with racket head speed you used it.

Is it the best forehand in the world? It depends what the metric is, is it rpm, raw speed, velocity, winners, angles. Is it one of the best? For sure. How do you compare Federer’s, to Rafa’s?

I am sure it was a big feeling for Kyle to beat Andy at Eastbourne, because he has been a mentor and a role model for him. The clash with England’s World Cup match with Sweden - and his banter with Swedish coach Frederik Rosengren - is another really good thing, it will be a nice distraction. I am sure Kyle and his coaching team would love to be watching the match but on the middle Saturday at Wimbledon I know what the priority is. The match is difficult to predict. I won’t say who is going to win but I think Kyle has really good chance.

Roger Federer was my favourite for the title before a ball was struck and the events of the past week haven’t changed that although I would never be disrespectful to the rest of the field. Roger is Roger but he has been around long enough to know that mistakes happen. Would you have picked Borna Coric to beat him in the final of Halle? I don’t think so. Rafa Nadal looks good, even if he was tested by Mikhail Kukushkin. I’ve always said that if Rafa can get through the first week he becomes a different beast.

As for the women’s draw, it is wide, wide open, the last seven slams have been won by seven different players. Everyone who goes into the draw thinks they have a chance of winning it, and when these shocks happen it only magnifies things. Serena Williams probably played French Open singles and doubles to get herself up to speed for Wimbledon, but wisely she is not playing doubles this week. She obviously hasn’t had loads of matches but when she starts getting through rounds she is going to back herself even more.

Scotland’s Aidan McHugh, Jacob Fearnley and Connor Thompson are all in the juniors, which start today. A couple of them hit with Roger Federer a couple of times so when you get a call back like that you must be doing something right. I don’t look too much into junior results but it is a good benchmark.