THERE were a few laughs amongst the assembled tennis hacks in the US Open media room last week when Jamie Murray casually mentioned that in some ways his brother Andy wasn't his ideal choice of doubles partner. The 30-year-old actually finds it easier to engage in on-court communication with a man who was brought up 9000 miles away in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, than one who is the product of the same Dunblane household.
"Um, yeah … Probably, yeah,” said Jamie, shortly after he and his partner Bruno Soares had comprehensively beaten Pablo Carreño Busta and Guillermo García-López to claim the pair's second major title win, and Jamie's third in all. "We talk more."
On closer reflection, the claim isn't as surprising as it would seem. Murray and Soares are a committed pairing who spend most days together, single-minded when it comes to achieving the same goals. As instinctively as Jamie knows and understands his brother, theirs will forever be a part-time, ad hoc arrangement. Unless, that is, a vague goal to possibly play more together on the tour as they get older comes to pass.
While Jamie arrives in Glasgow this week as the only undisputed doubles specialist in either team, his arrangement with his younger sibling tends to work best in the Davis Cup arena. Five times they have played together – meeting both obscure names and household ones – despatching all five. There was Laurent Bram and Mike Vermeer of Luxembourg back in 2011, Nicolas Mahut and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France, Sam Groth and Lleyton Hewitt of Australia and Steve Darcis and David Goffin of Belgium on Britain's glory run of 2015, not to mention Yoshihito Nishioka and Yasutaka Uchiyama of Japan earlier this year in Birmingham.
The need to extend that record to an even half dozen has rarely been greater than it will be today, when ostensibly at least they will take on Argentine duo Federico Delbonis and Leonardo Mayer in a rubber which Great Britain simply cannot afford to lose.
"From a personal point of view, it’s super-exciting for me to be playing here in Scotland, to play in front of a packed-out house with the incredible atmosphere that I’m sure will be the same as last year," said Jamie. "We know it’s going to be a very difficult match against a really tough team, but I think we’re all looking forward to getting out there and competing an playing in front of so many people in such a noisy crowd.”
Overall, the Murray brothers have won 34 and lost 24 matches in all, hoovering up a couple of tour events, one in Valencia in November 2010 and another in Tokyo in 2011, along the way. But Olympic play continues to be a theatre of cruelty. While many top singles players also enter the doubles events at the Olympics, the Murrays have only won a solitary match in three attempts, the most recent disappointment coming in a first round defeat to Andre Sa and Thomaz Bellucci in two tight tie-breakers in Rio.
The good news for Great Britain, though, is that the form of their provisional opponents – assuming Daniel Orsanic is as good as his word – is even more patchy. In eight tour events together, Federico Delbonis and Leonardo Mayer have won just one match, ironically against British squad member Dom Inglot and his then partner Treat Huey of the Philippines. They have yet to play a single Davis Cup rubber together and most observers will only believe that will be Argentina's actual pairing when they walk out on court.
Dan Evans, who partnered Nick Kyrgios at the US Open, is theoretically an option to replace Andy Murray should the World No.2 conclude that his body is too banged up after his five-hour ordeal against to play all three days. But the Murray brothers are still Britain's best bet if they are to salvage anything out of this tie.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here