Andy Murray chose the day he revealed he had received a good luck message from the Queen to display the form which could make him king of Wimbledon.

Murray took just one hour and 28 minutes to defeat Latvia's Ernests Gulbis 6-2, 7-5, 6-3 to take his place in the third round.

So complete was the demolition that the British fans almost appeared stunned by its ruthlessness.

The Centre Court crowd are used to fretting over five-set, late-night roller-coasters with Tim Henman and accustomed to taking their tennis with emotion and a liberal sprinkling of tension.

They are not used to British tennis players dispatching lesser lights of the world game in the fashion normally reserved for Roger Federer.

But that is what Murray did against Gulbis on an afternoon when he made just five unforced errors.

He was left flying a lone flag for Great Britain in the Wimbledon singles after Elena Baltacha joined the rest of the home failures with a miserably timid defeat against Belgium's Kirsten Flipkens.

On the message from the Queen, Murray said: "You don't get that every day, so yeah, it was surprising."

"Well done for winning at Queen's and good luck here was the gist of it."

Luck did not come into it against a man who had made allegations that Murray had indulged in gamesmanship in their encounter at Queen's last year.

Murray simply chose to settle the score with a serving display which evoked memories of the days Pete Sampras and Goran Ivanisevic hurled fluffy yellow missiles at each other.

The speed gun regularly clocked in at around 130mph. In the second set Murray hurtled down three aces in succession while Gulbis looked to the heavens as if appealing for intervention from on high. In the first set Murray won 16 straight points on his serve.

"I played well," said Murray. "I served really well for the whole match.

"Apart from the first game when he had a couple of chances on my serve I didn't give him another break point. It was much better than my first match. It was very solid.

"I had a few nerves and tension in the first match but today I was a bit more relaxed and it was good. If I serve like that for the rest of the tournament I'll have a good chance."