Jamie Murray hot-footed it out of New York on Sunday, bound for Scotland and his country’s Davis Cup semi-final against Australia, which begins in Glasgow on Friday.
The quick turnaround will doubtless help the 29-year-old get over his defeat in the final at Flushing Meadows, doubly frustrating after losing in the final at Wimbledon just two months ago.
But the Jamie Murray of 2015 is a very different animal to the one that Australia’s John Peers encountered when they joined forces early in 2012.
The Scot, who admits he had been so down at one stage he was considering quitting, is a rejuvenated figure, playing some of the best tennis of his life.
If their 6-4, 6-4 defeat by the French pairing of Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert at Flushing Meadows, will have hurt, the tennis Murray and Peers played along the way to a second consecutive grand slam final was outstanding.
Their run to the final should push them into the top four in the Race to London, the top eight pairs qualifying for the ATP World Tour Finals at the O2 in November.
Having been close in the past couple of years, Murray and Peers look certainties this time round, testimony to hard work, dedication and, as the Scot freely admits, the coaching prowess of Louis Cayer.
The Canadian has been the catalyst for the abundance of British doubles players on the ATP Tour these days, his innovative methods and positivity rubbing off.
“He’s the best doubles coach in the world,” Murray said of Cayer last week in an interview on Sky Sports.
“At one stage we had nine players in the top 60, which is pretty amazing. He talks about commanding areas, not really about what we do with the ball.”
Reaching London was the goal for Murray and Peers at the start of the year and achieving it – barring some results that would give even mathematicians a headache – is good going.
The US Open was criticised for scheduling the final three hours before the start of the women’s singles final, meaning most people who had tickets for the big match of the day did not show up until just before it.
It left a near-empty Arthur Ashe Stadium Court, something Murray admitted did not help but fell short of weighing in on the argument.
“You take what you can get. I'd rather play in the empty stadium in a final than have a full stadium and lose in the first round.”
The pair will head to Asia for a few tournaments before returning to Europe but this week, they’ll be apart as Murray heads to Glasgow, where he is likely to team up with his brother, Andy Murray, in the doubles.
With the younger Murray brother expected to win both his singles matches, the doubles could well prove crucial to their hopes of reaching the final for the first time since 1978.
“I think we’re probably favourites,” Murray said. “If we play as well as we have done, we have a great chance to be in the final.”
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