“I’ve always liked playing against him,” said Murray, whose friendship-cum-rivalry with Djokovic dates back to when they were 12 years old. “And after the year that he had, the loss didn’t look so bad six months later.
“I hope I have improved since last year,” he added. “The results that I’ve had would suggest that. We’ll see whether I’ve closed the gap or not.
“Every year or few years someone improves and sets the bar higher. Rafa and Roger were the ones who were doing that for five, six or seven years. Last year Novak managed to do it, so that’s the goal for everyone if you’re right at the top of the game — to try and be the one setting the bar.”
While there are clearly a few tensions bubbling away below the surface of Federer’s relationship with Nadal, Murray and Djokovic are genuinely close.
Before last year’s Australian Open, they trained together and even had a couple of three-a-side kickabouts with their backroom staffs.
“It’s great to see that somebody who you grow up next to is doing well,” said Djokovicon Wednesday. He also suggested that Ivan Lendl should take on his own coach, Marian Vajda, in a tennis match of their own.
This invitation is likely to go unheeded. Yes, Murray and Lendl may have spent so much time rabbiting on about their shared sense of humour that this trope has become a target for satire in Australia (According to one disbelieving pundit, the very idea “evoked visions of coach and player rolling on the floor at the sight of a drowning puppy”). But they both know that they are approaching the business end of the fortnight.
On Wednesday, Murray devoted his column in The Australian newspaper to the subject of “brutality” — both in terms of the stifling hot weather we have experienced, and in relation to Lendl’s famous habit of smacking the ball straight at his opponents from close range. It is a tactic that Murray himself says he would not shy away from.
“You do whatever it takes to get that win,” he explained. “If that means hitting them [your opponent] with a passing shot like [Nicolas] Almagro did with Berdych, you just have to do it.”
Murray’s quarter-final on Wednesday did not require any such extreme measures, as he was always far too strong for Nishikori, the 24th seed. After his 6-3, 6-3, 6-1 victory, he said he had enjoyed himself — in contrast to his “boring” outing against the injured Mikhail Kukushkin on Monday.
This match certainly made for better entertainment. There were several long points that saw both players scampering from forehand side to backhand side, up to the net and then back to the baseline, almost as if they were performing one of those coaching drills where you have to touch all four corners of the court.
Although Murray kept Nishikori off balance throughout — with the exception of one brilliant moment when the Japanese produced a “tweener” lob with his back to the net – the one concern was his first-serve statistic of just 44 per cent.
“I had a sore neck today when I woke up and I wasn’t feeling my serve,” he explained. “I’ll work on it tomorrow and get the rhythm back.” He had better, otherwise Djokovic will ram his second serve back past him all day long.
Djokovic himself had a slightly eccentric match against Ferrer in which he clutched repeatedly at his hamstrings and his knees. But as soon as he came off court, he reassured everyone that “I don’t have any physical issues. I feel very fit and mentally very fresh as well”.
Both of these men have mild tendencies toward hypochondria, but when it comes down to it, they are arguably the fittest men on the tour. Friday’s match is shaping up to be a classic.