IT wasn't exactly how Jamie Murray can have envisaged it. The elder Murray sibling and his Brazilian partner Bruno Soares received a shimmering silver trophy to mark their year-end status as the best doubles pairing in the business just minutes after their ATP World Tour Finals campaign came to an end with a disappointing and rather sudden 6-1, 6-4 semi-final defeat to Rajeev Klaasen of South Africa and Rajeev Ram of the USA. If their smiles were somewhat forced when ATP chief executive Chris Kermode presented them with the trophy and a bottle of expensive champagne each, it didn't take long for them to consider the bright side after a year which also saw them win two Grand Slam titles.
"It was a weird feeling," admitted Jamie. "But that's just life, isn't it? We lost, but they did a nice presentation. We can be happy with our efforts this year, I think."
Murray admitted that in the form of Klaasen and Ram, the No 7 seeds, they had just come up against an inspired team. It can't have helped either that the pairing's arrival on court had to be put back by an hour due to the late finish of his brother Andy's singles semi-final against Milos Raonic. The defeat also put an end to Soares' hopes of being crowned the individual doubles year-end No 1, an honour that went to Nicolas Mahut of France.
"We watched the last set," said Jamie. "We didn't have anything else to do. We were just waiting for them to finish. It was stressful and I'm sure everyone watching it was finding it pretty tense. It was obviously not an easy situation to watch, then have to go on court to play. But it was obviously great that he won. Gives himself a chance in the final now.
"Those guys [Klaasen and Ram] just zoned," he added. "It can happen. I don't think we did a terrible job, we just got kind of steamrollered, which can happen in doubles. We probably missed a couple shots kind of at wrong times that didn't help our cause.
"But I think we have got lots to look forward to next year. We obviously won a lot of matches but we lost a lot too. There's things we can improve and we're both aware of that. Hopefully next year we're sitting here again in the same spot in the rankings."
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