Murray shows us where his limits are after opting not to reveal all

A total of 10 hours and 10 minutes in The Emirates Arena spotlight, then and while a straight sets victory over the world number 49 was, on the face of it, only to be expected of one of the finest players the sport has ever produced, attrition had meant the win could not be taken for granted.

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All the more so when Murray left the court for a dramatically lengthy medical time-out early in what proved to be the decisive set, confirming that he was not only dealing with an opponent who had never lost a Davis Cup match and had dismantled his team-mate Kyle Edmund two days earlier, but was battling with a worrying groin problem.

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Which is how we discovered where this man who spends his life coping with the scrutiny that comes with two-time Wimbledon and Olympic champion status draws the line as he made what fell just short of a public apology to Pella for leaving him waiting for eight minutes just after he had moved ahead in a set for the first time.

“The reason I had to go off is because I can’t get my nuts out on the court. I mean, I can’t do that,” Murray explained both self-evidently and graphically.

“So that’s why I had to go off the court, because the strapping had to be done very high up on my right leg and I needed to take my clothes off but, yeah, I would be annoyed for sure. I would be annoyed if that was me waiting.

“If you are the one sitting and waiting for someone who has gone off, either to the toilet or for a medical time-out, yeah, it’s frustrating.”

He justifiably noted that this could not, however, be interpreted as a case of seeking to disrupt an opponent’s momentum.

“Obviously I was in the driving seat at the time, I was in control of the match,” Murray pointed out.

“But, still, I then broke the next game, held serve and broke. That was it.”

It was indeed and it was a match Murray had dominated to that point, demonstrating even greater understanding than previously of the impact of the exertion involved in these matches for the man on whom so much depends.

“I think this weekend I just accepted it better than I have in the past,” he said.

“I expected to feel tired, I expected to be in some pain this weekend, I spoke to my team about that. I knew it was going to be hard so my expectations were less.

“Sometimes I go into ties thinking it was going to be alright and at the end of it I felt horrendous. Because I accepted how I was going to feel I handled it okay.”

It seemed obvious that, given all that had gone before, Murray must view this match differently to the way he would normally approach a meeting with a player of Pella’s calibre, treating it more like one of those encounters with big-hitting servers like John Isner or Ivo Karlovic in waiting for chances to present themselves then raising the energy levels at those points.

It certainly seemed that way when, after Pella mishit a forehand on the opening point of his second service game, Murray’s alertness level appeared to rise that vital fraction and he was to break to 30.

That let him relax slightly and, when the opportunity arose, take advantage of having the upper hand in points by running Pella around and seeking to reduce the advantage he had begun with in terms of relative freshness.

Two breaks of serve in the second set put Murray in complete control, but as he pulled back his foot to stretch after holding serve to level things at the beginning of the third set a new sense of urgency entered proceedings.

Murray had still seemed in reasonable fettle when, as Pella and his captain Daniel Orsanic trudged off to the toilets at the end of the second set, the Scot jogged past them and returned much more briskly too, but three games later it became evident that all was not well.

That he came back from the medical time-out, broke serve at the first opportunity, then served his way to victory spoke to his commitment, while he paid tribute to the contribution of the home support, saying: “I never worry that, when I get out there, I’m going to feel flat. You just can’t feel that way when you have that intense an atmosphere.”

Consequently, pulling out of the match was never a consideration.

“I was still moving okay, it was just the pain and when you get pain in your body that distracts you, you start worrying about that rather than hitting the ball, the tactics and what you are trying to do in the match. I wasn't thinking about withdrawing, I was more concerned about how my leg was.”

An opportunity for some much-needed rest now presents itself and the hope must be that no more than that will be required after his brutal summer schedule, but Murray admitted that this is unknown territory for him, adding: “I have never had any muscle injuries before. The two matches that I had to withdraw from, one was a wrist and one was my back, and that was the joint, so I have never had a sharp pain in my muscle before so that was worrying for me.”