Three years ago, Jamie Murray was considering quitting, fed up with the Tour and unable to find a partner. Last night, he became a Grand Slam doubles champion for the first time.
Murray and new partner Bruno Soares – in just their third tournament together – beat 12-times Grand Slam champion Daniel Nestor and the Czech Radek Stepanek, who owns two titles himself, 2-6, 6-4, 7-5 in a brilliant final.
It was the first Grand Slam doubles crown for both men and in the space of three months, Jamie Murray has achieved two things he probably never believed were possible.
First, he and brother Andy, who was there well after 1am to see Jamie collect the trophy, won the Davis Cup for Britain and now he has a Grand Slam doubles title to his name.
“This is my bread and butter,” said Jamie, asked to compare the feeling with that of winning the mixed doubles at Wimbledon in 2007. “For me, the Grand Slam men’s doubles, that is going to be the pinnacle of my career, other than Davis Cup obviously. This is what I’m working towards every day, every time I step on the court.
“It’s an amazing feeling to have realised that with Bruno. We played a great tournament. Did a lot of great things on the court together. Yeah, pretty speechless. Really, really happy with our work the last couple of weeks.”
It is nice to see Jamie happy and smiling, for it has not been the case at various stages of his career. Three years ago he was thinking of hanging up his rackets, unable to find a partner and languishing down near the 100 mark in the rankings.
A partnership with John Peers and the decision to work again with his former coach, the doubles guru, Louis Cayer, did the trick and Murray and Peers went close to a Grand Slam doubles title themselves, losing in the final at Wimbledon and the US Open last summer.
Sometimes a change is as good as a rest and Murray and Soares have joined forces to great effect, winning in Sydney the week before Melbourne and picking up the big one here in Melbourne.
Murray said Cayer was the reason he was able to perform on the big stage.
“I had Louis with me on and off, for about 10 years,” he said. “He’s the guy that made it happen for me to have success on the doubles court. He really believed that I could do great things. It took me a lot longer to realise it.”
Off the back of this win, Murray will climb to No 2 in the rankings and given that Novak Djokovic, whom Andy Murray plays in the singles final here today, is miles ahead at the top, Jamie could be the first brother to get to No 1.
“That’s amazing,” he said. “I never thought about that. I guess the race is on. Bring it on.”
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