It’s a hard life, being a No2. You put in all the work but you get none of the public plaudits. Not if the person you’re second to is Andy Murray, at any rate.

No wonder that the victory of James Ward – for many years Andy Murray’s de facto deputy – over Jiri Vesely was accompanied by such an outpouring of love on No2 Court. The Londoner’s 6-2, 7-6, 3-6, 6-3 defeat of the Czech player, ranked 65 places higher, was his greatest on-court achievement and secured his progression to the third round for the first time.

It would have felt all the sweeter since Ward had recently lost his ranking as British No2. Recent injuries and the arrival in the UK of Aljaz Bedene – who fared less well on Thursday, losing in four sets to 22nd seed Viktor Troicki – had combined to knock him down to No4, and Ward, who helped Great Britain defeat USA in the Davis Cup in March, was under threat of his place for the upcoming quarter-final with France. You suspect that is now far from his mind.

Ward may have had a little luck in the draw so far – the No8 seed, David Ferrer, withdrew, leaving Ward a first-round match against the non-qualifying Luca Vanni – but his Czech opponent was a big favourite in this match. Celebrating his 22nd birthday next week, Vesely is considered a rising star of the tour – a former junior No1 whose father is a tennis coach and who won his first ATP Tour title in Auckland this year. Ward, meanwhile, had been struggling with both knee and foot problems since March and was playing on painkillers.

So Ward knew that a short match was a good match. He broke Vesely in only the second game and tested the left-hander’s backhand from the outset. Since hiring the Australian coach Darren Tandy last year Ward has been working on his accuracy, and that precision was evident throughout in his cool passing shots, his whipped cross-court forehand, and a pin-perfect lob to the baseline in the second set tie-break.

Ward has been taken under the wing of Ray Kelvin, otherwise known as Ted Baker, who has been designing him a daring sequence of bespoke outfits for the tour this year. Under Wimbledon’s stringent clothing restrictions the only flash on show here was the little hint of red on his collar and his socks – but there was plenty more in his play. He thrashed his first serve of the match past Vesely’s air shot of a backhand, and ended up hitting 15 in the match in total.

Both players challenged each other all round the court, demonstrating deft net play that kept the 4,000-strong crowd oohing and aahing. Ward was especially quick to move forward but he was composed at the baseline too, and when the pair did manage a long rally of ground strokes in the second set, he was the man who brought it to a killer finish.

The looked-for break failed to come, though; at 4-3 and 0-40 up Tandy had given Ward an approving nod but Ward lost that game and went 0-30 down in the next. A set point then went begging to a viciously spinning volley, and by the time he was 0-3 down in the tie break, Ward’s long arms seemed to hang a little longer. He prevailed, only for Vesely to take the third set.

The Czech, who needed a medical time out for treatment on his left shoulder, played the match’s more muscular shots. But he also made more errors and a number of times the ball flew wildly from the edge of his racquet. “I had a bit of a lapse in the third set, which was frustrating,” Ward said. “To bounce back and come through showed a lot of character. I have a lot of belief in myself.”

That showed in the final set, which required him to hold his nerve through a couple of testing games – including one where, close to the net, he got hit on the cheek by a Vesely backhand. “Those last three service games in that set were tough. He didn’t miss too many balls,” Ward said. “I think he returned pretty well throughout the whole match.”

Ever since Murray’s appearance in the top four, it has always been the hope – not least of Murray himself – that his success would inspire those around him. Heather Watson and Laura Robson have both responded to that aspirational call in recent years; Ward’s achievement will, you suspect, feel even closer to home.

Murray took Ward to Miami on a boot camp at the start of this year as the pair helped each other prepare for the season. Those preparations have paid off: Ward, ranked No173 before the start of the French Open, has now entered the top 100 for the first time.

“It’s always a good help spending time with him, at Davis Cup and off-season as well, which I’ve been lucky enough to do,” Ward said. “Good habits rub off on you if you spend enough time around someone.”