On the day that Jamie Murray accidentally killed a bird during a training session with a serve, and when Rafael Nadal's opponent, Marcos Daniel, only had one good leg, Andy Murray's opening appearance of the Australian Open finished a little earlier than he had imagined because of soreness in Karol Beck's shoulder.
The poor sparrow did not survive long, and neither Daniel nor Beck lasted a full match.
It says something about the general efficiency of Murray's tennis, and how he took all the tension out of the air against Beck, that the most disconcerting experience of his day was when he heard about his brother's misadventures with the local wildlife.
If Murray can play like this in his second-round match with Ukraine's Illya Marchenko – their first career meeting – he should not have too many difficulties in beating the world No 79.
Murray, competing at the opening grand slam of the year in a shirt that some local television commentators have been describing as "Shrek green", ought to have more trouble pronouncing the city of Marchenko's birth, Dneprodzerzhinsk, than progressing to the last 32.
Murray does not have a full-time coach in his entourage, and his part-time coach, Alex Corretja, has remained in Spain, so he has been receiving information on Marchenko from his mother, Judy, as well as from his friend and hitting-partner Dani Vallverdu.
Judy and Vallverdu watched some of Marchenko's straight-sets defeat of
Spaniard Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo. The
23 year-old has never been beyond the second round at a slam.
Those who live north of Hadrian's Wall, and who have a good memory, may recall that Marchenko competed in Glasgow a couple of years ago, when Britain faced Ukraine in the Davis Cup, though he did not end up playing Murray as the Briton had a virus.
With every round of this slam, Murray is adding to his mental database, as it was also the first time that he had shared a court with Beck. He was 6-3, 6-1, 4-2 up when Beck offered a handshake at the net.
It did not help that they were playing on the Hisense Arena, an unlovely court that has all the charm of an out-of-town shopping centre, but this mostly felt about as dramatic as the pre-match warm-up.
Even before it became apparent that Beck's shoulder was causing him some problems, even before the world No 101 stretched out on a towel to have his body looked at by a physiotherapist, there was no danger whatsoever of the eastern European defeating the world No 5 and last year's beaten finalist.
It surely would not have taken Murray too long to appreciate that Beck, who was suspended for two years after testing positive for a banned substance in 2005, was not going to hurt him.
Anyone who merely glanced at the statistics-sheet and the number of winners from each player – Beck's 23 to Murray's 21 – might have imagined that this had been a competitive match, perhaps even that the Slovak had gone through.
The reality, though, was that Beck's winners were outnumbered by his mistakes, as he made 43 unforced errors to Murray's 17. Murray was happy for Beck to go for his shots, as he knew that there would be two bloopers for every winner.
If Murray reaches the semi-finals, he would expect to play Nadal, who was on court for less than an hour against his Brazilian opponent. Nadal was leading 6-0, 5-0 when Daniel stopped shuffling around the Rod Laver Arena.
That opening set lasted just 19 minutes, and you have to consider that Nadal plays slowly, taking his time between points to towel himself down and readjust his underwear.
If Daniel was going to have any chance of winning a game, he needed to chase down Nadal's forehands, yet that was not possible because of the pain in his knee. Daniel had medical treatment, but soon saw that there was little point in continuing against the world No 1.
Nadal, who moved that bit closer to becoming the first man since Rod Laver in 1969 to hold all four slams simultaneously, next plays American Ryan Sweeting.
David Nalbandian, of Argentina, saved a couple of match points in a first-round, five-set victory over Australia's Lleyton Hewitt which took almost five hours and finished after 1am.
Nalbandian is not known for his physical conditioning yet he is about as bloody-minded as they come and he won an entertaining contest 3-6, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6, 9-7.
Next up: what we know about Illya Marchenko
1. He has never gone beyond the second round at any of the grand slam tournaments.
2. He has been to Scotland, however, when he played for Ukraine against Great Britain in a Davis Cup tie at the Braehead Arena in 2009. Ukraine won 4-1.
Marchenko beat Josh Goodall in straight sets – all tie-breakers – but then lost a dead rubber to Chris Eaton.
3. Both of his parents are engineers.
4. His older brother, Igor, skated for Ukraine in the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics.
5. His boyhood tennis idol was the Australian terrier, Lleyton Hewitt.
