Don’t knock Andy Murray, Roger Federer is just relentless

He is still a tennis colt, he reminded us, with a long career and many more chances to win major tournaments ahead of him. And even if he never does, he added, there are more important things to worry about than tennis.

From anyone else, we might dismiss those words as a defiant façade designed to hide the agony of defeat. From one whose eight-year-old self hid beneath his headmaster's desk while a maniac slaughtered his Dunblane primary schoolmates, they carry weight. Murray is loth to reflect publicly on that act of indescribable lunacy, understandably, and how it shaped him. But no sporting star on earth has stronger cause to avoid confusing savage disappointment with personal calamity.

If Murray did himself great credit in his response to defeat, charming the watching world with that ambition to match Roger Federer with his racket as well as his lachrymals, and then downplaying its magnitude, he had already done the same on court.

He played beautifully in Melbourne yesterday, only sobbing afterwards because — fanciful as this will seem — he knew how much closer to winning he had come than the scoreline implies. Had he taken one of five set points in that classic tiebreak, and maintained the momentum, Federer's fragile self-belief in Grand Slam finals might well have cracked as it did in deciding sets in Australia and New York last year.

The Swiss's level of play was breathtaking even by his standards, and still Murray came within a literal ace of testing his resilience to the full.

We could spend a month analysing the technical reasons why he narrowly failed to do so, fixating on his poor first serve percentage in the opening two sets, for example, and his nervy netting of a regulation forehand winner when set point up in the third. Perhaps he should have been bolder in going for the lines, although he's beaten the Fed six times before with guile and patience.

He might have tried to hustle him out of his rhythm by serve-volleying now and then, although so imperious and laser-guided were the Swiss's ground strokes that he'd have been passed to perdition. And even if Murray tightened a shade when break up in the third, it was more his opponent's brilliance than his own weakness that nullified the advantage there.

You could make several criticisms of Murray yesterday but it feels pitifully parochial to dwell on his failings rather than pay incredulous homage to a talent that transcends such footling concerns as patriotic hope dashed once again.

There has never been a genius like Federer in tennis, perhaps in any sport, and the second act to his career continues to astonish. When he blubbed in Melbourne a year ago after losing to Rafael Nadal, he was clearly in decline and obsolete as the dominant force. He has won three of the four subsequent majors, and with Nadal injured again will fancy his chances to takes all the Slam titles this year.

Fatherhood has matured and relaxed him, and dulled the tendency to self-pity. Unthinkably his game has improved. Yesterday his backhand, relentlessly targeted by Murray as the supposedly vulnerable wing, was more reliable than ever before.

His serving when facing break point was, as so often, flawless. His movement was precise and elegant, his touch divine, his ability to move Murray from side to side sublime. His natural fitness continues to defy belief. He never gets injured, never tires physically, never breaks sweat. After a five-hour match, you feel, he could take off his trainers and fill the locker room with the scent of Alpine flowers.

There is something not quite human about Federer, and his Thatcherite declaration of intent to go on and on cannot delight his rivals.

Yet Murray has no reason for gloom. Another notably dour baseliner, Ivan Lendl, was older than he is today when he won his first major, having lost four finals, and went on to snaffle eight. As Federer glibly consoled him, Murray is far too good not to become a Grand Slam champion.

Whether he will have to wait a few years until decay slows Federer and weakens his appetite, I rather doubt. He has the steepest learning curve in men's tennis, and already the gulf between him and the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) is far from immense. That chasm looked distinctly bridgeable yesterday, and the Scottish have pretty decent form when it comes to the engineering of bridges.