THE O2 played host to a royal command performance last night as Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares got their bid to join Andy Murray as year-end number ones in their chosen event up and running. The elder Murray sibling has attended Buckingham Palace twice recently, first to pick up his OBE then to attend a state banquet in honour of the Colombian President in the company of his Colombian-born wife Alejandra, and it transpires that both the Queen and Prince Charles are rooting for Jamie to join his brother at the summit of the rankings. On Her Majesty's service or not, the 30-year-old and his Brazilian partner's hopes of being crowned the world's best doubles team got off to the perfect start with a 6-4, 7-5 win against No 8 seeds Max Mirnyi of Belarus and Treat Huey of the Philippines.

"Yeah, we were there twice in a week," said Jamie. "We got to meet the Queen, which was quite surreal. It was really cool to be invested. I didn't really expect it at all. I felt really honoured to receive that.

"Then we got to go to the State Banquet," added Jamie. "It was such a unique thing to go to and we had a really nice night, and met a lot of nice people. They were all on top of what we were doing, and kind of rooting for us and Andy to try to finish at No.1. Well Prince Charles was. When I met the Colombian President, I laughed when the Queen said 'I've seen him play tennis before'. I thought that was quite funny."

Murray, who sealed the win with a belated challenge on match point, said the only downside to his trips to the palace was some confusion over portion sizes. "The thing is, you serve yourself," said Jamie. "I just assumed it was, like, one piece for each person. At the end of the meal, I went to my wife. I said, I think I'm going to need to get some more food. She says 'why didn't you take what you wanted?' The two guys she was sitting next to were piling it in. They were a bit more experienced, I think, in these affairs."