Minutes later, while Murray took Centre Court at the All England Club to a rousing ovation, Smithfield’s patrons — a mixture of tourists, expats and slender men and women carrying tennis rackets — began filtering in. By the time the match was under way, the pub was at standing room only capacity. The mood? From where I sat, it was nervous anticipation, cut with dread and Bloody Mary mix.

While Murray fiddled with his racket during warm-ups, Federer, the man with the perfectly calibrated grass-court game, waited impassively across the net. Federer has held tennis fans in his sway for more than a decade and would be in the unfamiliar role of quasi-villain among the local fans hoping for Murray to end Britain’s 76-year drought in search of a men’s Wimbledon champion.

How would Murray cope with the weight of the moment, not only the biggest of his career, but also the greatest in more than a half-century of British men’s tennis? My theory, backed by an informal poll of Smithfield patrons, was that he wouldn’t — or, at least not very well. The prevailing view was that he would earn an A for effort, but that early on his concentration would be broken along with his serve. The fact that Murray was looking for his first Grand Slam title in his fourth attempt weighed heavily in my thinking, not to mention his having to fight history (and some say, fate) by squaring off against arguably the game’s greatest grass-court player.

That theory began to lose its luster (as theories born of alcohol consumption before noon occasionally do) as Murray started strongly and confidently, breaking Federer’s serve early. He won the first set, 6-4, and all was rosy at Smithfield. I began buying into the idea that he could do what just an hour earlier had seemed the impossible: he could beat Federer and win Wimbledon.

And then, as so often happens with Federer, he found the slightest opening to burst through. Specifically, there was a 30-minute, 26-point game in the second set that ended when Federer (up, 3-2) broke Murray’s serve — on his sixth break chance. That seemed to deflate Murray, and our crowd, which had been buzzing with excitement between points. (During play, however, the pub was nearly silent, respectful of tennis tradition.)