Andy Murray v Novak Djokovic: a Wimbledon showdown to savour | Observer editorial

Change of service: Wimbledon delivered a string of surprises this year. Photograph: Tom Jenkins

For all its grace and gentility, the annual spectacle of Wimbledon is about the closest we come on our sofas to what students of the higher primates call a "dominance hierarchy". Such a hierarchy involves the continuous head-to-head confrontation between members of a social group to establish a ranking order of prowess and strength and, ultimately, to establish the alpha male. In less evolved species, such contests are explicitly linked to mating rights, which, of course, have no place at all in our subconscious fascination with the green theatre of Centre Court (cut here to intimate close-up reaction of girlfriend to that last impossible backhand down the line).

Just occasionally in all such dominance hierarchies, an unforeseen shift occurs overnight, and all that seemed stable suddenly looks thrillingly provisional. This year's Wimbledon has been so fascinating because it has dramatised exactly such a shift. The surprising frailty of the old order of Federer and (wounded) Nadal – and in the women's draw Sharapova and Serena – has been unceremoniously exposed, and new fearless pretenders have emerged: the indomitable Marion Bartoli, the alarming roaring Pole, Jerzy Janowicz, and Juan Martín del Potro, testing every detail of the world No 1's mettle in nearly five hours of brutal and mesmerising combat.

That Andy Murray should have emerged from this wildly uncertain fortnight to face Novak Djokovic once again says pretty much everything you need to know about him as a competitor. We hesitate to suggest that Murray's time to top the dominance hierarchy – and lift that golden trophy – is overdue. Djokovic is too athletic and adamantine an opponent for that. But we take heart from the fact that Murray seems to have the knack of finding ways to prevail from unpromising ones. Whatever the outcome, we are guaranteed a very long afternoon in the summer sun, and one that will no doubt echo to that familiar guttural primal scream: "C'MON ANDY!"

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