''It's his home basically here,'' said the rising 11th seed and Queen’s Club champion before his first Wimbledon quarter-final. ''He's been playing a lot of matches on the centre court. He knows his way around the grass pretty good. He's a great mover.

''I'm just going to play my game. I'm not going to step back. I just want to come out with my big game and play my aggressive tennis. I don't want to adjust to my opponent, so to speak. I'm focusing on my game and what I can bring to the court. The rest is going to come.''

Murray has won three of the pair's four meetings, but Dimitrov the last: on a hardcourt this year in Acapulco, in a close semi-final in three sets. But the super-talented 23-year-old has made great strides under Australian coach Roger Rasheed, notably in shot selection and discipline, and this will be his chance to measure the exact distance travelled.

If Dimitrov’s reputation, and scheduling privileges, still precede too many tangible results, then Murray is respectful of the challenge posed by the Bulgarian, rated since before the tournament as the leading contender outside the Big Four, and whom the Scot now believes is reaching his prime.

Third-seeded Murray, who has confirmed a place in the last eight for the seventh consecutive year, has not lost a set en route, and was seriously pushed for the first time only after a roof-closing rain delay interrupted the third that was shifted indoors against South African Kevin Anderson.

Yet while others have been sabotaged by the weather – and, Australian Open Stan Wawrinka claims, the flawed Saturday scheduling – the centre court-insulated Murray suggested that the Swiss, well, deal with it. Wawrinka said the potential scenarios of three best-of-five-set matches in three days, and five in seven for he or his dangerous fourth-round opponent Feliciano Lopez, was easily avoided by making the two unstarted men’s matches the priority after Saturday’s extended rain delay.

Top seed Novak Djokovic was among the sympathisers, suggesting a review of the traditional Sunday rest policy at the All England Club. ''This tradition was broken a couple of times, and I remember a few years ago it was the case when they actually had to play a few matches,'' said Djokovic, who is 9-0 against his quarter-final opponent, Marin Cilic.

"So I think we have to rethink about this Sunday in between, because the day was beautiful. It was no rain, and the whole day there was no match played. No other grand slam has this particular rule. We all know that tradition is something that is nurtured here in All England Club, and we respect that. But there are some rules that I believe should be updated, changed, for the better of the schedule and for the better of the players.''

Th women's draw, meanwhile, was plunged into further anarchy with the 6-3, 6-0 thrashing of 2012 finalist Agnieszka Radwanska – the highest-ranked player left in the Czech-dominated bottom half – by 22nd seed Ekaterina Makarova. Noting the stature of the already-departed, there would be far more surprising results than a first major championship for Eugenie Bouchard, the princess who would be queen.