For two sets totalling almost two-and-a-half hours, Andy Murray matched the great Serb Novak Djokovic in yesterday's Australian Open men's singles tennis final. Given how brilliantly the world number one was playing throughout, that was no mean feat.

As ever, Djokovic was sliding and scampering and scurrying around the baseline, returning balls he simply had no right to over and over again before launching a stupendous winner from some ridiculous angle. But Murray was doing exactly the same, taking the faintest whiff of every chance and refusing to be downhearted whenever an opportunity slipped away.

They were two of the very best sets of tennis I have ever seen, and, if anything, Djokovic appeared the more vulnerable of the two, clutching first his hand and then his ankle with injuries seemingly apparent only after he lost a point, and showing rare tactical naivety by charging to the net behind several timid approach shots.

With two sets on the board, I got up to have breakfast, confident I would be back in time for the business end of another spellbinding set.

Alas, by the time I returned, Djokovic had sealed the crucial break and momentum had swung once and for all. Murray, like a marathon runner who had kept up with his opponent for so long, finally faced one surge too many, and hit the wall of mental and physical exhaustion. The two lingering weaknesses in his game - his second serve and his mental fragility - were suddenly exposed and Djokovic was in no mood to take pity.

Over four sets at the Australian Open Novak Djokovic (left) was too strong for Andy Murray ©Getty Images





The third and fourth sets passed in a blaze of Djokovic winners and Murray errors and the match was wrapped up little more than an hour after the end of the second set. An eighth Grand Slam title for Djokovic, and a fifth Australian Open triumph, in comparison with six losses in eight Grand Slam finals for Murray, with four of them coming in the early-year heat of Melbourne.

If he was not from the same era as Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, Djokovic would surely already be considered among the best players of all time. His movement, agility, returning, fitness, mental strength, resilience and tactical nous is among the best in the game's history, and his lack of obvious weakness, particularly over five sets, is startling.

For Murray - lest we forget, a two time Grand Slam winner and reigning Olympic singles champion himself - it was another reminder that he remains a few steps behind the very best, at their best. While his timid second serve is a weakness which rarely proves fatal, his mental lapses are something he cannot afford. Indeed, his racquet-smashing histrionics in the third set yesterday were reminiscent of an earlier and less successful period of his career,

But, despite the disappointment, the match got me thinking about how much there is to admire in both men, just as there seems to be with Nadal and Federer and most of the other top players. As both finalists showed in their post-match comments, they are rivals on the court but respectful and, if not close friends then at least amenable, off it. There was no trash talking beforehand and no gloating afterwards, but mutual respect as they swapped compliments on the birth of Djokovic's first son and Murray's engagement to long-term girlfriend Kim Sears.