Muscular Murray building up for glory

The British number secured a comfortable 6-3 6-4 7-6 opening victory against Fabrice Santoro in which he frequently served at or above the 130mph mark and the Scotsman revealed his training and bulking-up schedule in the months leading up to Wimbledon.

Murray said: "I do a lot of chin-ups. I started doing them with a 20-kilo weight attached to me around the waist. I have served as big as 137 at the US Open before. Obviously Wimbledon's a little slower. But I've worked on my upper-body strength the last year or so."

At 21 he is not as beefy yet as Spaniard Rafael Nadal, whose biceps have become a regular focus for tennis photographers, but he has put on 10lbs since last November and expects to add another 10 before reaching his optimum serving weight.

He said: "I'm probably not going to be as big as him [Nadal] but in terms of definition I think I'm up there. I measured my body fat at Queen's and I was 6.5% body fat which is not bad.

"When I was 16 and 17 I needed to be careful not to do too many weights because I was growing a lot. Your bones and muscles are still developing and it's easy to develop stress fractures or chronic problems.

"I eased that when I was around that age. I spent a lot of time on court and not as much time in the gym. Now it's reversed a bit. Now I'm getting in the gym a lot of the time. It's definitely something I've tried to work on a lot.

"I've put on four kilos [around 10lbs] since November-December time which is quite a lot. I want to put on three or four more kilos and then that hopefully will be my weight for the rest of my career."

Murray, who thrilled the Centre Court crowd against Santoro by matching the Frenchman's renowned improvisation shot for shot, believes he has seen the benefit already.

He added: "My five-set record has got much, much better. I'm lasting much better out there on court and that's something I always needed to improve."