Following his victory in the US Open junior event in 2004, Andy Murray had been widely touted as Tim Henman's eventual successor at the top of the British men's tennis.
Nevertheless, his swift rise up the rankings following that triumph still surprised most people. The young Scot was ranked outside of the top 400 at the start of 2005, but by the time that he met Henman in the first round of the Swiss Open in Basel 10 years ago today, Murray had jumped up to 70th spot.
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While Murray was undoubtedly on the up, 31-year-old Henman's decline was there for all to see, with no title having been won in two years. Even so, with all of his experience to call upon, he was still regarded to be the favourite to win through this encounter.
An 18-year-old Murray, though, had other ideas as he produced a first-set display that the elder statesman could not live with. Henman, who made 19 unforced errors, was broken on two occasions as Murray opened up a one-set lead in just 35 minutes.
It then seemed that a humiliation was on the cards when Murray served for the match at 5-4 in the second set. But to Henman's credit, he dug in to win that particular game and then won the next two as well to take the encounter into a deciding third set.
Despite breaks of serve being threatened, both players held on, which forced the set into a tie-breaker. It was at that moment Murray took control of proceedings when he capitalised on a bounce off the net to open up a 3-0 lead, before eventually going on to win through 7-4.
It sealed a famous 6-2 5-7 7-6(4) victory for Murray and also suggested that a changing of the guard in British tennis was in the offing. After all, this was the first time that four-time Wimbledon semi-finalist Henman had lost to a compatriot since Greg Rusedski had gotten the better of him in 1998.
Speaking afterwards, Murray told BBC Sport: "This is a pretty special day for me and I'll remember it for the rest of my life. To win against someone like Tim, who inspired me to play the game is definitely the biggest of my career.
"If it wasn't for Tim I wouldn't be playing. I tried not to show emotion but at the end I couldn't hold it in."
The defeated Henman added: "It's frustrating and disappointing. I don't think I dealt with it as well as I have done in the past. I think Andy was the one who handled it better.
"I didn't get off to the start I would like and I did well to turn it around at the end of the second set when he was serving for the match. I really wanted to kick on from there but it never really happened for me."
