Andy Murray’s rivals are dropping like flies: has he added the Weird Sisters to his extensive retinue?

When Wimbledon started just three days ago, Andy Murray faced the prospect of meeting Tsonga in the quarters and either Nadal or Federer in the semis – and now the biggest name he’s likely to face before the final is the young Canadian Milos Raonic, whom he beat in straight sets in the last 16 of last year’s US Open on his way to winning the title. Raonic is a pretty good player (he beat Murray at the Japan Open last October) but he’s one of the worst returners of serve at the top of the game and will be no match for Murray over five sets on grass.

I love the way top seeds express either mild regret or a total lack of interest when asked how they feel about rivals being knocked out at an early stage of a slam. These chaps live to win these events, and I’d be surprised if Murray’s reaction on hearing that Tsonga, Federer and Nadal had all bitten the dust wasn’t to leap up and down screaming “YEEEEESSSSSSSSSSS!” and furiously pumping his fists before subsiding into a fit of cackling laughter. Murray can beat Tsonga, but you never know what mood the burly Frenchman’s going to turn up in. As for Federer, he has won Wimbledon seven times – the last time by beating Murray. And as for Nadal, who the hell would want to face the fiercest competitor in the history of the sport in the semi-final of a tournament he’s won twice?

No, Murray will be abso-bloody-lutely delighted!

Mind you, Djokovic awaits him in the final, and the Serbinator looked pretty ominous in his opening match yesterday (but, then, so did Federer). But here’s the thing – Murray is a better grass-court player than Djokovic. He really should win.

If anyone’s wondering why I’m not more cut up about Federer’s defeat – he is, after all, my all-time sporting hero – well, there are a number of reasons for my fairly nonchalant acceptance of his demise at the hands of a little-known Ukrainian:

1. Sergiy Stakhovsky played superbly (he actually reduced me to screaming “Miss one, you bastard!” at the TV on more than one occasion). His second serves, in particular, were astonishingly effective. And when the pressure was really on, he declined to buckle. Fantastic performance: he deserved to win.

2. Federer was beaten by a classic grass court serve-and-volleyer. Honestly, we’d all assumed the breed was extinct. Funny to think that when Federer beat Pete Sampras in the fourth round at Wimbledon in 2001, this was how the Swiss played the game. Two years later, when Federer won the championship for the first time, he did it as a pure base-liner. Tennis needs more serve-and-volleyers, if only to leaven its current diet of ball-tearing 48-stroke baseline rallies.

3. After Federer won last year’s Wimbledon, after a 30-month slam title drought, there was nothing left for him to prove. His record of 17 grand slams was never going to be equalled. Nadal is on 12, and, while he might win a couple more French Opens, I doubt he’ll win another hard-court slam and probably won’t even turn up at Wimbledon again (to quote Ronnie Barker in Porridge, when asked whether he indulged in homosexual activities: "What? With these knees?"). Even safer is the most ridiculous of all Federer’s records – not losing before the quarter-finals in 36 consecutive slams: that means he won at least the first four matches he played in every slam for nine years on the trot, which is utterly inhuman, impossible, ludicrous. The great man has achieved enough. If he wants to keep on playing, that’s great – when he’s on form, he still achieves a sort of platonic ideal of this glorious sport.

4. On a purely selfish note, I will no longer have to sit with my guts roiling praying that Federer is going to be able to beat an opponent playing out of his freaking skull (his five-setter against Benneteau on his way to the Wimbledon title last year was particularly draining). Now that he’s finally lost before the quarter-finals, each match will no longer seem like a matter of life and death to his fans – we can simply enjoy the fact that he’s still playing, and only the terminally deluded among us will expect him to win another slam.

5. This is the first time in nine years that neither Federer or Nadal will still have been in contention as a slam heads into the second week – that feels strangely liberating: it’s time we focussed on the Djokovic-Murray rivalry, which replicates the thrilling struggle between superhuman fitness and ruthless efficiency on one side and true tennis genius on the other (in case there's any doubt, Murray is the genius).

6. I wasn’t looking forward to having to choose between supporting Murray and Federer in the Wimbledon semis. The Olympic final was easy – patriotism and all that – but actually rooting against my hero at Wimbledon might have proved impossible: now I can roar unambiguously for Murray to my heart’s content.

Mind you, given the fate of the three main obstacles to Murray reaching the final, he might end up playing some obscure Estonian qualifier on Sunday week instead of the world No 1. The way things are panning out for the Scot, one might suspect he's recently had an encouter with three old biddies on some blasted heath back home. I’d recommend that Djokovic's team chalk a pentagram on the floor around their employer's bed for the next eleven nights.