ATPWorldTour.com takes a look at the news and talking points at The Championships on Thursday.

What The Papers Are Saying
Pete Sampras, a seven-time former Wimbledon champion, is toying with the idea of attending the men’s singles final at The Championships on Sunday. Sampras has not been back to the All England Club since 2002. “I’ve been going back and forth [about the idea],” Sampras said yesterday. “Having two kids on a 12-hour flight to London isn’t my idea of a fun activity. It’s a long trip, but it’s a great moment in sport. Roger’s a friend and it would be great to be there.” Rod Laver, who captured his second ‘Grand Slam’ in 1969, is a Guest of Honour this year.

Bob Bryan and Mike Bryan are struggling to deal with the sweltering conditions in London. Writing on Twitter, the twins say “Having problems with the heat in the house… Can't sleep...cramps setting in...going downstairs in search of an I.V.. Someone call me the whaaaaambulance.” And on Wednesday, “Lying in bed in a pool of my own sweat. These London heat waves are brutal. I'd give my left ____ (fill in blank) for some A\C.”

Andy Murray believes Roger Federer record of 21 straight Grand Slam semi-finals (or better) will not be broken. The Daily Telegraph report, “Murray said his own consistency was ‘very, very good’, but Federer’s was ‘incredible’, as the top two seeds in the draw stayed on course [Wednesday] for a clash in the final. ‘The consistency in the big tournaments, is ridiculous,’” the 22-year-old Murray said. ‘No one will ever match that. The consistency is the one thing. I don’t think it’s been surprising that once he won a few slams, everyone was saying that he could be the best ever. But just to have no slip-ups, to have no injuries - maybe he has but covered that well – to not be really sick or to miss one event, one slam through injury, it’s pretty incredible.’”

The Guardian, The Times, The Independent and The Daily Telegraph report that ticket prices for The Championships are soaring as Murray closes in on Sunday’s singles final. “Andy Murray fans are being warned to only buy tickets for the Wimbledon final from official sources following reports that fake Centre Court passes are being touted for as much as £20,000 - 200 times their face value,” writes The Daily Telegraph. According to The Times, “Wimbledon authorities are investigating websites for charging thousands of pounds for tickets that do not exist. One such website under investigation is offering tickets for the final at £2,868 and a Romanian businessman has reportedly already lost £11,000 trying to buy four non-existent tickets.”

While the BBC’s television coverage has enjoyed record audiences during The Championships fortnight, spare a thought for the audience across the Atlantic Ocean. Richard Sandomir, of The New York Times, writes, “If NBC Sports can’t carry Wimbledon matches live, especially crucial ones, it shouldn’t carry Wimbledon at all. The network’s tape-delay dance — and its excuses — have grown tired. Here’s what happened Wednesday: at 8 a.m. Eastern, ESPN2 started showing the Tommy Haas-Novak Djokovic match live (!) until early in the third set. But the network had to leave at 10 a.m., when NBC’s exclusive three-hour window kicked in. That was NBC’s cue to go to the videotape of Roger Federer’s straight-sets victory over Ivo Karlovic — on an unnerving two-hour delay. Then, as if diced-and-sliced tennis were how its surveys found that fans preferred to watch Grand Slam events, NBC showed the rest of the Haas-Djokovic match on what was a four- to five-hour delay.”

Andy Roddick, the sixth seed and two-time Wimbledon runner-up, insists he will be ready for Murray in the semi-finals. The American, who beat Lleyton Hewitt in a five-set quarter-finals clash Thursday, said: “I felt fine out there physically. I’m sure I’ll pull up a little bit sore, but that’s to be expected. I feel fit and I feel healthy. I’m in better shape now than I was when I was 24.”

According to The Guardian, Roddick’s coach Larry Stefanki believes his employer will surprise Murray in the semi-finals. “Andy played Murray in Doha this year and lost badly,” Stefanki said of Roddick's 6–4, 6–2 defeat in January’s final. “He adopted very aggressive tactics and that did not work at all. Murray is a counter-puncher who can turn defence into attack but he is almost better when playing against pace.” Stefanki also revealed he turned down an opportunity to coach Murray when the Scot was beginning his senior career. “He was too weak and too young,” Stefanki told The Daily Mail. “And I didn’t fancy all the baggage I knew would go with the job. But I was always certain he would be a Top-10 player. He was a boy then. Now he is a man.”

John Inverdale, a versatile sports presenter for the BBC, who is anchoring ‘Today at Wimbledon’ during the fortnight, reveals in his Evening Standard column that he won’t be tempting fate and tip Murray to win The Championships title. “Nine years ago, writing a newspaper column about British gold medal prospects at the Sydney Olympics, I couldn’t bring myself to jinx the coxless four and predict a fifth gold for Steve Redgrave, and so declared they would have to make do with silver,” Inverdale writes. “After their (obviously inevitable) glorious triumph, Matt Pinsent came into the BBC studios and said he'd read the piece at the time with genuine annoyance. 'Did you really believe what you'd written?' he asked. 'I didn't want to tempt fate.' I said. 'Fate,' said Pinsent, 'had nothing to do with it.' And so it is with Wimbledon 2009. Are we merely hoping Andy Murray can win tomorrow and then again two days later, or do we genuinely believe it?”

Finally, The Daily Mirror reports that “Orange have launched a ‘Wimbledon grunting’ ringtone featuring the circuit’s best female grunters to give tennis lovers the full Wimbledon experience.”

Headline Of The Day
‘I Ain’t Half Hot Mum!’ headlines The Sun, a British tabloid newspaper. “The one constant during Andy Murray’s career has been his mum Judy. Yesterday, though, she was nowhere to be seen as the British No 1 coasted into the Wimbledon semi-finals. With the Scot a set up but trailing Juan Carlos Ferrero 3-1 in the second, she vacated her Centre Court seat to watch Murray's brother, Jamie, in the mixed doubles.”

Murray Mania
Tim Henman, a four-time former semi-finalist, is backing Murray to achieve what he could never do and lift the men’s singles title at The Championships.  “He is very difficult to beat and I really do fancy his chances to win it,” Henman said on Today at Wimbledon. Henman’s BBC colleague, John McEnroe, also backed Murray to lift the title. The three-time former champion said: “He is a totally legitimate contender to win this. Can I see him winning it? Absolutely!” Greg Rusedski, writing in The Daily Mirror, believes, “To become the first British winner of Wimbledon in 73 years on Sunday, Andy Murray will have to serve like he did [against Juan Carlos Ferrero] in his next two matches.”

Simon Barnes, the chief sports writer of The Times, in reaction to his quarter-final win over Ferrero, writes, “Andy Murray served up a treat for British tennis fans, but it was not the rollercoaster ride they may have been used to when Tim Henman was in his pomp. It was a performance that confirms all that we have been learning about Murray over the past year. What? No errors? No agonies? No hysterics? No reeling and writhing and fainting in coils? But that was part of the old days: part of Tim’s days. Murray is a different proposition entirely. For him, a quarter-final win at a grand-slam tournament was not a great adventure, it was a reaffirmation of his own excellence.”

The Guardian reports that overnight figures indicate that "Murray's three-set quarter-final victory gave BBC1's Wimbledon tennis coverage another ratings boost, Wednesday 1 July, with the afternoon match netting almost half the available TV audience." The match "attracted 4.5 million viewers and a 46% share between 3.15 p.m. and 5 p.m."

Murray prepared for Friday’s semi-final against Roddick with a relaxed training session. The Times writes, “Not so much a training session, more a boys' day out. Andy Murray prepared for the biggest day in his Wimbledon life with a kick-about with the lads he calls Team Murray. There might well have been serious intent behind the 45-minute game and it seemed to be all about Murray's extraordinary competitive instinct as he cajoled and barracked his chums into losing points and suffering the dreaded forfeit.”

Jamie Murray, the 2007 Wimbledon mixed doubles champion, says he had not had time to watch many of his brother’s matches at The Championships this year. “I haven’t seen Andy much at all. He’s got his own team around him. To win Wimbledon by yourself is huge and if you mess it up, it’s your own fault.”

Sports Business Daily writes Andy Murray “could secure a lucrative sponsorship deal worth at least US$163.8M and would be the subject of a bidding war between brands” if he becomes the first British man since Fred Perry in 1936 to win the men’s singles title.

Quote Of The Day
Murray insists he is dealing with the mounting pressure, the hype, by ignoring it. "It doesn’t make any difference to the way you perform, the hype. If you spend the whole time – if you work in media and spend a lot of time reading the papers, watching everything on the TV, all the things that are getting said on the radio – then you get caught up in it. If you ignore it, you don’t realise it’s happening. I don’t read it because 90% of the stuff’s going to be untrue anyway,” he said.

Statistic Of The Day
For the first time this year, the names of men’s singles champions will be engraved on a new plinth as there is no longer any space for further engravings on the silver gilt 18.5 inches-high cup – first presented by the All England Club in 1887. Ever since 1949, all champions have received a miniature replica of the trophy.