No hat-trick of Wimbledon mixed doubles titles yet for Jamie Murray but a whole lot of memories - and some tired legs.
No hat-trick of Wimbledon mixed doubles titles yet for Jamie Murray but a whole lot of memories - and some tired legs.
Murray has established himself as one of the game’s leading men’s doubles players, claiming the Australian Open and US Open titles in 2016.
However visitors to the Wimbledon honours boards will be directed towards the mixed doubles section to see his name with previous wins coming ten years apart in 2007 and 2017.
On Sunday, he was looking to add another entry, aiming to become the first player to win the Wimbledon mixed doubles with three different partners, this time alongside Victoria Azarenka.
But while their run to the final to face Alexander Peya and Nicole Melichar provided plenty of entertaining moments – including the drama of three matches going the distance – their fortune ran out on centre court against the competition’s 11th seeds, losing 7-6 6-3.
“We earned getting to the final and played a lot of tennis,” said Murray, who went out at the quarter-final stage of the men's doubles.
“It was a lot of fun to play with Vika, she’s such a great player and such a great champion. It was a lot of fun for me.
“We lost which is disappointing when you work so hard to get to the final.
“Over the course of the two weeks we played a lot of good tennis, we fought hard through a lot of difficult moments. Overall we’ve got to be pleased with how it went, it’s not easy to get to Grand Slam finals.
“We stepped on the court to win and do our best and see where we got. We got all the way to the final.”
This year saw the men’s singles semi-finals rip up the history books, as Kevin Anderson and John Isner contested the longest last-four match before Rafael Nadal and eventual champion Novak Djokovic put on their best efforts to emulate them.
And with the opening 12 games of the last remaining centre court final of 2018 going with serve, Wimbledon officials would have been hoping another late finish was not on the cards.
But when Murray dumped an easy effort into the net, Azarenka directed her backhand down the line wide, her partner could not dig out a return and Peya replied with another scorcher, the team dubbed Muzzarenka suddenly found themselves 4-0 down in the tie-breaker.
Azarenka reduced the deficit with a big serve but that was as good as it got as Peya and Melichar wrapped up the opening set 7-1.
Only two of the ten mixed doubles final since Murray’s three-set win alongside Jelena Jankovic in 2007 have gone the distance, with the Scot’s victory with Martina Hingis last year wrapped up in two.
And he was on the receiving end this time around, as he and Azarenka failed to recover from an early break of serve in the second, although they did at least force their opponents to serve for the match.
“I lost my serve at the start of the second set and that didn’t really help. I didn’t really return well enough to be honest,” said Murray, who has been managing a knee injury this year although insisted the complaint had improved on the grass and he would now turn his attentions to the hard court season.
“I didn’t really give Victoria any chances to put pressure on them. I didn’t really felt like I served very well either.
“I was disappointed with my performance. I started to get it together a bit in the second set on the returning side of things.
“But they played well. Alex played a lot of good stuff up at the net, he made the spaces very small to hit into. She played really well too.”
Earlier Jack Draper learnt to embrace the pressures that come with being a Brit playing in a final at Wimbledon.
But guts and doggedness were not quite enough for him to become the first boys’ singles title winner since 1962 as he lost out to Taiwanese top seed Tseng Chun-hsin 6-1 6-7 6-4.
“The adrenaline from the crowd and having that many people watching me drove me on,” said the 16-year-old.
"It was a case of getting used to having that many people watch me.
“It gives me immense confidence. It’s still surreal, I’m still taking it all in this week. It’s going to give me a lot of motivation.”
Sportsbeat 2018