There was a vivid sense last summer of the very different individuals Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic are and why Murray is the one whose company you would travel to the end of the earth to keep.
Murray — an individual so accustomed to the limitations that come with age that his daughter has started observing that he arrives home early from tournaments: ‘Daddy, you lost another tennis match’ — was playing Olympic doubles with Joe Salisbury in Tokyo’s 33˚C heat as if his life depended on it.
The spectacle became almost comical at one stage, as Murray and Salisbury stood nose to nose and screamed: ‘Let’s go!’
Andy Murray's remarkable comeback to the forefront of tennis continues out in Melbourne
When they lost that quarter-final, to Marin Cilic and Ivan Dodig of Croatia, Murray said he felt ‘crushed’. He thanked Salisbury for the ‘opportunity to play’ on what was a very remote outside court.
A few days later Djokovic rocked up for men’s singles and mixed doubles semi-finals that Murray would have given the earth for and the world No 1 showed an utter disregard for the sanctity of Olympic sport.
After crashing to Alexander Zverev in the first semi-final, Djokovic displayed minimal commitment to the second and even less to his two bronze medal matches.
He barely contested the singles bronze and pulled out of the mixed game, leaving his Serbian team-mate Nina Stojanovic without a medal.
As Djokovic (above) sloped off back to Belgrade, Murray stepped into the John Cain Arena and rolled back the years at the Australian Open
An individual’s sheer, unadulterated love of the game they play is so often forgotten amid the sound and fury of elite sport, though in Melbourne across the past few days, Murray has again shown Djokovic what those kinds of values look like.
As Djokovic sloped off back to Belgrade, Murray stepped into the John Cain Arena and rolled back the years. As an antidote to the self-absorption and fabricated sense of victimhood displayed by Djokovic, who has the best medical advice money can buy to help him with his vaccination, it was special. No wonder Murray was cheered to the rafters.
Here, in plain sight, was a
