But the place he has carved out in today’s final of the Australian Open ensures that the honour has been seized, for the moment at least, by a 20-year-old from Cyprus, Marcos Baghdatis. Even the rocket-propelled progress of Murray through the rankings list has been eclipsed by the fashion in which the product of a sleepy village in the Troodos Mountains swashbuckled through the field in Melbourne, transforming a men’s event written off beforehand as a dreary formality because of the absence through injury of Andre Agassi, Rafael Nadal and the holder, Marat Safin. He won’t find many Welshmen supporting his view – in fact, most of them are not looking forward to the match at all. Then again, we weren’t all that confident this time last year when we played England – and that was the start of the Welsh Grand Slam.. The England coach, Andy Robinson, claims that Wales are the favourites to win the big clash at Twickenham on Saturday. Their forwards played with a spirit and sense of purpose that their opponents could not begin to match and it comes to something when you find yourself outplayed by Chris Malone.. What do you do with a problem like Lewis Moody? In Leicester’s case the wisest course of action faced with the flanker’s maddening combination of talent and commitment was not to risk getting him sent off in his first match back from a ban for punching.

Moody was shown the yellow card for an off-the-ball challenge just before half-time and did not return from the sin-bin for fear of something worse. Leicester’s head coach, Pat Howard, did not mince his words, saying: “Lewis had a yellow card and I didn’t want to see him a get a red because of his enthusiasm.”. Yesterday, however, you had to wonder how Bath were deep in relegation territory and Wasps were at the other end of the table. Bath, who had won only three out of 12 Premiership matches, took Wasps to the cleaners.

Unless they buck up their ideas, Saracens will be fortunate to still have a toe in the Premiership come the end of the season.. It is still possible, although admittedly highly unlikely, for Bath to win the Heineken Cup while almost simultaneously finding themselves up the Avon with only a tiger shark for company. A successful campaign in Europe – the good news is that they qualified for the quarter-finals, the bad is that they are away to Leicester – coincided with a worrying run in the Guinness Premiership. If there was any good news it was that none of Gloucester’s England contingent appeared to have suffered any injury, which should be of some relief to the national coach, Andy Robinson.. Watching Saracens is a bit like a Showaddywaddy concert You have seen it all before. There is no expectation of novelty, there is precious little entertainment, and you wonder quite why you bothered.