Britain’s Andy Murray has confirmed he will play mixed doubles with Serena Williams at Wimbledon.

Murray, a two-time singles champion at SW19, will compete in both the men’s and mixed doubles less than a month after returning following hip surgery.

American Williams, a 23-time Grand Slam singles winner, had earlier told journalists: “If you guys really want it… all right, done.”

The pair are expected to play their first match together on Thursday.

Murray, who won Queen’s with Feliciano Lopez, will partner Frenchman Pierre-Hugues Herbert in the men’s doubles.

The Scot was turned down by world number one Ashleigh Barty before suggesting he might pair up with 37-year-old Williams, who has won seven doubles titles at Wimbledon.

Murray said: “Serena is obviously a brilliant player, has a great doubles record and is brilliant on grass obviously. She’s arguably the best player ever.”

Laughing, he added: “So she’d be a solid partner.”

The only issue will be whether the American’s knees will cope with the extra demands of playing doubles as well as singles – and whether Murray’s fitness holds up to what will be a packed doubles programme if they have a good run.

Williams has struggled with a knee injury this year but beat Giulia Gatto-Monticone on Tuesday.

Murray played mixed doubles at Wimbledon in 2006 where he teamed up with Belgium’s Kirsten Flipkens and reached the second round.

He was also a silver medallist with Laura Robson in the London 2012 Olympics which were played at the All England Club.

Williams is a two-time mixed doubles Grand Slam champion, having partnered Max Mirnyi to win Wimbledon and the US Open in 1998.

Some 64 pairings compete in the mixed doubles, which is played over the best of three sets.

Williams teases media over Murray doubles

Just before the pairing was confirmed, Williams had remained coy about the prospect at a news conference following her first-round singles victory.

Journalist: “When do you think you could make that decision? Next three hours? In the morning?”

Williams: “This is crazy. I don’t know. I’m still kind of in the singles mode, trying to figure that part out. We’ll see. I could use extra matches, though, so… could be something.”

Journalist: “Could you give us a rough percentage of how likely you think it is you would play with Andy?”

Williams: “I don’t know. If you guys really want it, then maybe I’ll do it.”

Journalist: “We do really want it.”

Williams: “Yeah? All right, done, just for you guys. Don’t forget.”

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Eight-time champion Roger Federer survived a first-set scare to see off South African debutant Lloyd Harris and reach the Wimbledon second round.

Federer, 37, moved through the gears to win 3-6 6-1 6-2 6-2 on Centre Court.

After Harris left the crowd stunned by taking the opener, Federer began to find his rhythm and rattled off victory in one hour and 51 minutes.

The Swiss, aiming for a record-extending ninth men’s title, will face Britain’s Jay Clarke next.

Clarke, 20, took his seventh match point to beat American Noah Rubin in four sets, clinching the additional prize of meeting the 20-time Grand Slam champion on Thursday.

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Federer was ‘frozen’ as Harris threatened seismic shock

Harris, 22, was making his debut at Wimbledon – and had never even won a match on grass going into Tuesday’s meeting with arguably the greatest player of all time.

But the world number 86 rocked Federer with blistering serves consistently around 130mph and backed that up with some heaving groundstrokes in a first set which left Centre Court murmuring in disbelief.

After breaking Federer’s serve for a 4-2 lead, Harris confidently sealed the opener in 29 minutes as he threatened to create one of the most seismic shocks ever seen at Wimbledon.

Federer, who had dropped a set in the first round at Wimbledon for the first time since 2010, seemed to lack the assurance which has rarely gone missing in his illustrious career.

“I struggled early on, I felt a bit frozen, my legs weren’t going,” Federer told BBC Sport.

“I felt it was heavy out there, the ball wasn’t going when I was hitting it and he was hitting it big.”

The challenge for Harris was always going to be maintaining his level as Federer started to find more rhythm and make him work harder for his points.

As Federer rediscovered his timing and touch, Harris wildly slashed a forehand wide – with the ball sitting up invitingly for the South African and Federer stricken at the baseline – on a break point for a 3-1 lead to the Swiss.

From that point he could not recover, Federer winning 11 of the next 13 points to level the match and then continue to go through the gears as he broke twice in the third set.

Then it turned into a procession towards victory, with Harris looking like he might have to pull out with a calf injury which left him needing lengthy treatment.

But he refused to quit as Federer began to purr, a dipping, cross-court backhand winner sealing another break early in the fourth for the Swiss as he cruised to his 17th straight first-round win at the All England Club.

“He kept me nervous for a set and a half and I think that break was crucial in the second to turn things around,” Federer said.

“It took a big effort. Lloyd played a good match.”

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Centre Court, strawberries and cream … Wimbledon is famed for tradition but one is now missing – the use of ‘Miss’ and ‘Mrs’ at the end of games.

Marital status prefixes for female players have largely been scrapped by tournament organisers to bring parity with the men’s game.

That means no more “Game, Miss …” or “Game, set and match, Mrs…”

“We’ve got to move with the times,” said Alexandra Willis, a spokesperson for the All England Club.

“Hopefully we surprise people with the way we do that.”

Britain’s Heather Watson was among those to welcome the change, saying: “Equality is always good.”

Yet, as with the passing of all traditions, not everybody was completely won over.

Men’s world number one Novak Djokovic said he supported the move, but added: “I thought that tradition was very unique and very special. I thought it was nice.

“It’s definitely not easy to alter or change any traditions here that have been present for many years. It’s quite surprising that they’ve done that.”

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What Wimbledon say

• Prefixes are not used for pre-match announcements during warm-up or prior to first point (no change).
• Prefixes will not be used when announcing ‘game…’ score and end of match score ‘game, set, match…’ (change to achieve consistency for both women and men).
• Prefixes will be used for code violations, medical announcements and player challenges (no change – aligned with other tournaments).
• In summary, the only change is to remove the use of prefixes when announcing the score at the end of each game and at the end of each match.