Last weekend Murray and Great Britain threatened to go one better when they found themselves on the cusp of a quite remarkable Davis Cup semi-final.

Just three years after plummeting the murky depths of the Euro-Africa Zone Group II, they got the better of Russia and the United States before taking a 2-1 lead away on clay against Italy, with the prospect of a semi-final against either Kazakhstan or Switzerland to come.

Unfortunately reality then struck.

First Andy Murray succumbed in straight sets to a revitalised Italian number one Fabio Fognini before James Ward did likewise against tour stalwart Andrea Seppi.

The tie in many ways illustrated a false dawn in the British game which ultimately failed to hide the cracks in the national tennis resources, particularly when the vast funding they enjoy is taken into consideration.

Yet the fact that Murray took to the court and won two of his three matches despite struggling with illness in the days leading up to the match shows a strength of character which even a straight sets loss failed to cover up. The performance also reveals a reality of life as a professional sportsmen at odds with the somewhat utopian picture we get of superhuman athletes effortlessly achieving superhuman feats.

Murray, whose ranking has fallen from three to eight in recent months due to time out to have an operation on his flagging back, came down with a virus in the days building up to the tie and was unable to participate in the draw and regalia which preceded the contest.

Britain ultimately fell at the hands of Italy in their Davis Cup quarter final despite the best efforts of a virus-stricken Andy Murray ©Getty Images



It is unknown how much this illness ultimately cost him in his final defeat against Fognini and to his credit he did not cite it as a reason for his defeat. But it surely played at least an indirect role as his body failed to recover from two energy sapping duels on his least favoured surface.

His plight is a reminder that sport is not all fun and games, it is above all else a profession and much of it is about going out and getting the job done. Or at least trying to get the job done, as we saw with Murray.

But, and this may seem more obvious to people established in working life than to someone freshly out of the more cosseted world of university, doing your job when not feeling your best is a feature of all walks of life above and beyond professional tennis.

One of my colleagues at insidethegames for example recently became ill after a dose of malaria tablets yet, despite looking like death warmed up, still repeatedly came into the office and worked. And to cite an instance in the Olympic Movement, during the IOC Session last September in Buenos Aires it was clear that one of the six Presidential candidates was struggling with illness. But still no effort was spared as he undertook the compulsory circuits of The Hilton lobby in that all-important effort to gather last-minute votes.

To return to sport there are other example of individuals and teams falling to defeat after being struck by a mystery illness, a template for perhaps the most recurrent conspiracy theory in sport.

Two of the most famous examples concerned the New Zealand rugby team in the 1995 World Cup Final against hosts South Africa and Brazilian superstar Ronaldo ahead of the 1998 FIFA World Cup final against another host nation in France. On both occasions the illnesses led to defeats and, although nothing has ever been proven that there was any malicious poisoning of food related conspiracy, lingering suspicions remain nonetheless.

Ronaldo cut a forlorn figure during the 1998 World Cup Final in France
©AFP/Getty Images



There are also examples of sportsmen getting serious illnesses which have ruled them out of action for lengthier periods of time.

This can include mental conditions, such as the depression that has affected England cricketers Marcus Trescothick and Michael Yardy in recent years.  It can also include physical ones, such as the Hodgkin's lymphoma which tennis player Ross Hutchins suffered from before recovering to feature as the fourth member of Britain's Davis Cup team.

But at a lower level illness in sport is becoming a decreasingly common occurrence. In time gone by, the legendary "Delhi-belly" illness was considered an inevitable part of any cricket tour to India and the approach generally focused around damage limitation more than anything else.

This began to change ahead of the 2003 Rugby World Cup when, so keen were they to avoid a repeat of the illness which struck New Zealand in 1995, England employed a team chef amid rigorous tests of every morsel of food consumed by the entire ultimately victorious squad.

Fast forward a decade and this sort of attention to detail has become common place. All elements of food and drink consumption as well as sleep patterns and other activities are monitored and every measure is taken to ensure good hygiene and conditions, as well as timing athletes to be at peak condition at the most important times.

Next week an International Olympic Committee (IOC) World Conference on the Prevention of Injury and Illness in Sport in Monaco will examine these very themes.

So illness illustrates two sides of professionalism. This attention to detail and focus on "marginal gains", as well as the need to soldier on when things are not well.

Athletes like Mo Farah will have a huge back up team in place to avoid last minute illnesses ahead of the London Marathon next  ©Getty Images



For us normal people of course, such professional standards do not exist and dealing with illness remains something we have to combat on a daily basis.

And as all the great and good, not to mention the germs, of the sports world descends on Belek for the SportAccord Convention for a week which I have been somewhat ominously warned is the "toughest of the year", I expect battling on when not at our best will be a compulsory requirement. 

And although we will be ultimately hoping for a better result than the British Davis Cup tennis team against Italy, learning from the determination of Andy Murray to play three matches when still recovering from a virus will not put us far wrong.