IF Andy Murray makes the famous climb up to the Centre Court players' box in three week's time it would be nice to think that somebody is at least up there waiting for him. The Scot was busily striding across the Queen's Club grass yesterday to give his team a celebratory fist bump on the occasion of his record-setting fifth win at this famous old venue when he noticed that one seat lay empty. I know Ivan Lendl isn't a touchy feely kind of guy, but this is ridiculous.

There is usually method in the Czech's madness, though. The official reason was given last night as a toilet break, putting paid to the suggestion that Czech legend must have been nipping off to watch the last day of the US Open golf as live, but whatever else he was doing he was also reminding his charge that work continues and bigger challenges lie ahead. Perfect first week in the pair's second stint together or not, both men you suspect will only truly regard their arrangement as a success if they are holding another of the sport's famous old trophies aloft, perhaps as early as three weeks' time. Murray explicitly said as much afterwards, when he said the champagne would remain on ice until then.

Lendl's laid-back approach to coaching celebrations – perhaps the opposite of Jose Mourinho sprinting 50 yards down the Old Trafford touchline – chimed with the imperative to remember that this AEGON championships final was Andy Murray against Milos Raonic and not Ivan Lendl versus John McEnroe. The Czech legend won 21 of the 36 meetings between these great old rivals during their playing days – including one win at the 1990 Queen's Club semi-finals – but yesterday fully demonstrated the fact that it is the superstars of today, and not the superstar coaches of yesteryear, who are the authors of their own fortune.

Trailing by a set and a break, it wasn't Lendl who had to find the requisite answers to halt the charge of his Canadian opponent. It wasn't Lendl who had to start reading those thundering serves better and do more damage with his return game. As cleanly as he was striking the ball, Murray had been bested by a couple of points here and there in a taut first set tie-break, and was now trailing 3-0 to a man who hadn't surrendered his serve in 55 previous service games all week long.

Just when lesser mortals might have panicked, Murray looked inside himself and found those answers, just as he has done throughout his career. The clean crosscourt backhand return winner which saw him break back immediately wasn't just a point for the highlight reel of this tournament, it proved to be the turning point of this match. It was the first of four service breaks Raonic suffered, a fairly brutal blow to his prestige, as the Scot went through the gears.

It illustrated that as much as Raonic, a grasscourt semi-finalist at Wimbledon two years back, has improved his all-round game, he still has a distance to travel before he can go toe-to-toe with Murray on this form. This was the Scot's fourth successive tour final, two of which have ended with him holding the trophy. It is the hottest streak in his entire career.

"I was actually playing pretty well," said Murray afterwards. "He was serving great, obviously. I had no chances on his serve at all. I hadn't created any break points. Then along came a few good returns and it changed the match completely. When you have not been broken for a whole tournament, and then you lose serve it can throw you off a little bit. I capitalized on pretty much all the chances I had from there on in."

Murray, who had taken care of Nicolas Mahut, Aljaz Bedene, Kyle Edmund and Marin Cilic to get this far, said this was a special achievement at a tournament where he had won his first matches as a professional back in 2005. It wasn't only the watching McEnroe who he surpassed: the one-time Superbrat was one of an illustrious list of four-time winners of this title, along with Boris Becker, Roy Emerson, Lleyton Hewit, Andy Roddick, Anthony Wilding and Major Ritchie. "It's a tournament that obviously means a lot to me," he said. "It's not like I have had some sort of easy finals.."

It took a perfectionist to suggest that his best play, once again, had come when cornered. The really bad news for the rest of the field is that, with the benefit of a week's unfettered preparation - he will give himself Tuesday and Saturday off - he plans to be even better by the time Wimbledon ticks round.

"Obviously you don't want to get yourself in tough situations," said Murray. "But today was the one match really where I was behind. My best tennis is there. And I'm happy with that. When Wimbledon comes round, when I'll maybe a little bit more rested, with a little bit more practice and preparation, I won't give my opponents those opportunities that I have done this week."

Murray conceded that Raonic may well be in the mix in the majors from now on, particularly on the faster surfaces, but then we knew that from the five-set tussle between these two in the Australian Open semi-finals. Like many knocked out opponents in Murray's beloved boxing, he went away dreaming of a re-match at SW19. "It is my first time playing on grass on a Sunday," he said. "Hopefully I can maybe have a re-match in a couple of Sundays' time." We'll see about that, but on Fathers' Day one new dad had proved he was the daddy of them all at this venue.