AAP

One earth-moving outcome, two aftershocks and three giant steps for Andy Murray have home hopes at fever pitch that Britain's agonising 76-year wait for a men's grand slam tennis champion could be about to end.

Wimbledon is abuzz as Murray enters the second week of The Championships with a tantalising opportunity to break world sport's most infamous drought following Rafael Nadal's startling second-round demise.

A finalist on his previous five visits to the All England Club, and champion in 2008 and 2010, Nadal had been Murray's projected semi-final road block for the third year running.

Having also stopped the Scot at the penultimate stage in New York and Paris last year, British expectations - for once - were not high, especially after Murray's first-round loss at Queen's preceded a horror draw for the fourth seed.

But oh how Lukas Rosol's inspired defeat of the record-setting French Open champion and third-round tremors from Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer have changed Murray's world.

A late-finishing 7-5 3-6 7-5 6-1 triumph over Marcos Baghdatis on Saturday has edged Murray to within three wins of becoming Britain's first men's finalist since Bunny Austin in 1938.

And there's not a grand slam champion in sight - Murray's biggest hurdle likely to be French fifth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the last four.

With just two dropped sets in three matches, Murray enters his Monday match-up with Croatian marathon man Marin Cilic looking as assured as any of the 16 remaining title hopefuls.

Even if he's playing down host country hopes.

"It's silly for me to think that Nadal's out so I'm definitely guaranteed a place in the final," Murray said.

"That's certainly not the case."

But while the stone-faced Scot is refusing to talk up his chances, born-again Brian Baker can't quite believe he's still going.

After a six-and-a-half-year hiatus due to seven surgeries for hips, elbow, wrist and more, the American qualifier continued his remarkable renaissance with a 6-4 4-6 6-1 6-3 success over erratic young Frenchman Benoit Paire.

"I'm in the round of 16 of Wimbledon; this is awesome," Baker said.

"It is kind of crazy what's going on. But I'm still trying to stay focused on the task at hand and not get too wrapped around.

"Once you do that, I think it's tough to be able to play your best tennis."

The 27-year-old next faces Philipp Kohlschreiber, the German 27th seed who removed Nadal's Czech conqueror 6-2 6-3 7-6 (8-6).

Shunned to outside court No.12, the 100th-ranked Rosol conceded he was unable to raise his game to the dizzy heights of Thursday night under the closed roof of tennis's most hallowed arena.

"The atmosphere was really different," he said.

"But still (it) cannot be every match atmosphere like this two days ago.

"It was difficult."

Cilic, the 16th-seeded Queen's Club champion, booked his date with Murray on Monday with an epic 7-6 (8-6) 6-4 6-7 (2-7) 6-7 (3-7) 17-15 win over American Sam Querrey.

After the tournament's traditional break on Sunday, other key fourth-round matches on Monday pit Djokovic against fellow Serb Viktor Troicki, Federer versus Belgian Xavier Malisse, Tsonga against American 10th seed Mardy Fish and Spanish sixth seed David Ferrer against Argentine ninth seed Juan Martin del Potro.