To anyone who decided to go out when Andy Murray was two sets up against Nikoloz Basilashvili and leading the No.24 seed 5-0 in the third: your timing is atrocious.

In his first singles match at Wimbledon in four years, two-time champion Murray defied the pre-match form guide and chronic injury too – moving well, taking his chances, easing his way to a wonderful victory… until he didn’t.

The third set dissolved into a horror show for Murray as the Georgian snapped off seven straight games, before the Scot improbably emerged triumphant 6-4, 6-3, 5-7, 6-3 in three hours and 32 minutes.

The shrieking approval of the utterly wrung-out Centre Court throng must have been audible 3,000 miles away in Basilashvili’s home city of Tblisi.

“It’s amazing to be back playing out here on Centre Court again, in such a brilliant atmosphere,” Murray bellowed into a BBC microphone, attempting to make himself heard above the tumult.

“It’s something I’ve really missed. I was obviously so disappointed to have lost the third set and had to remember what I was doing that got me in a winning position. I managed to turn it back round.

“It’s been extremely tough to back to this stage. I’ve had such little momentum over these last few years. I just kept trying, kept working hard, doing all the right things to get me back in this position. I feel very lucky I get to do it again.

“I keep getting asked ‘is this my last Wimbledon, my last match?’ No, I’m going to keep playing. I want to play. I’m enjoying it. I can still play at the highest level. He [Basilashvili] is ranked 28 in the world, I’ve hardly played any matches and I beat him. So I’ll keep going.”

As the Centre Court crowd streamed away into the damp June night, they were still trying to figure out what they had just witnessed.

How could Murray have defied the odds to achieve this victory – under any circumstances, never mind the pattern of events that unfolded? How could Basilashvili not have capitalised on his irresistible momentum of the third set? How did Murray defy the catastrophic exhaustion written all over his game in that chapter to turn it around in the next? How, how, how…?

The solution: don’t question it. Just accept it. Even in the most optimistic scenario, Murray should not have won this match. But he did. That’s a champion for you. Never before in 12 previous visits to these lawns had he been vanquished at the first round stage, and he wasn’t about to start now.

Murray has known days of greater exaltation on this stage – 2013 and 2016 come to mind, can’t imagine why – but this triumph will have its own niche in his memory cabinet.

At Queen’s just two weeks ago, his voice broke as he admitted that he walks on court every time wondering if this will be his last match. This, at least, was not that time.

When victory came on his fourth match point, he couldn’t manage a gnash of his splendid dental work or a trademark roar, but simply a clench of his fist.

The players walked on to the greatest stage in tennis at 6.15pm, as a ray of beatific sunshine kissed Murray. A thunderous ovation greeted him – you’ll be amazed to know the crowd were somewhat in his corner – and for almost two hours, the heavens continued to smile on him against an opponent he had never previously faced, famous for walloping the ball into destruction.

The business of actually playing matches is a muscle in itself, and it is one that Murray has been able to exercise too little for too long, thanks to assorted well-documented travails with his hip, Covid, and most recently his groin.

Last year he won just three Tour-level matches, and in 2021 (before this match) fewer still, at two. Nonetheless he opened this skirmish with a service game featuring three aces, and as the set unfolded his familiar growl of “uuuhhh-eeee” filled the air as in days of old. His first break point doubled as set point, converted instantly when Basilashvili thumped a return into the net.

Should the Georgian ever tire of tennis, he surely has a promising future in poker. His habitually blank faced countenance remained unmoved not only as the second set inched away from him, but even as he faced the humiliation of a bagel in the third.

Instead, he earned his first service break of the match, and suddenly Murray’s entire body looked swamped by calamitous fatigue. He could not convert either of two match points at 5-3, and suddenly the match was into a fourth set.

But crazy hadn’t left the house. The evening gloom required the closure of the roof, and somehow by the time the players came back, Murray had miraculously regrouped. An early exchange of serves was halted when he held for 3-1, and this time there would be no turnaround for Basilashvili.