Murray had tears in his eyes at the presentation when he thanked his pregnant wife Kim Sears, who is due to give birth to their first child in the coming weeks. Kim’s father, Nigel Sears, traveled to Australia as coach for Ana Ivanovic, and had to be rushed to hospital by ambulance while Murray was on court in his third-round match.
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An emotional Murray mentioned the difficulty of the week as he thanked the crowd on Sunday night.
He is already – based on his results over the past two seasons – the best player on all the major surfaces: clay, grass and hard courts. “It’s an individual sport so a lot can happen and everything depends on you so I hope that I’m able to still respect and live this kind of lifestyle that helped me to reach this point of my career and my life and I have a great support of my family and my team of people and if it stays that way I don’t think anything is unreachable”.
“Kim has been, yeah, amazing. But it was tough”. I’m sure you’ll get other opportunities. “Just quite looking forward to getting home now”.
Murray hinted that the off-court dramas had affected his play.
Bruno Soares didn’t have much down time between his doubles championship matches.
How far I can go I don’t know. “Obviously, it’s not good to begin matches like that against someone like Novak”. Novak Djokovic won the match 6-1, 7-5, 7-6. That vanished with a break point in the opening game.
He was polite but one-minded in his post-match press conference, which lasted barely five minutes, before he raced to Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport in the wee small hours of Monday morning.
“It feels like for five days I’ve been held on nearly every single flight”, he said. “I could have played a bit better”. I didn’t think I hit my forehand as well as I could have done.
The Scot came out with more attacking conviction in the second set, finally unloading his double-handed backhand. I was able to get myself into the net more.
Djokovic has won 11 of his last 12 matches against longtime rival Murray, against whom he now stands 22-9.
It was also Djokovic’s 11th Grand Slam title, putting him in equal fifth place on the all-time list alongside Rod Laver and Bjorn Borg, behind leader Roger Federer’s 17. It was the 104th edition of the Australian Open, and the first Grand Slam tournament of the year.
He has only beaten the Serbian once in their last 11 meetings, but will be hungrier than ever to reverse his current streak of four consecutive defeats in grand slam finals.
At the peak of his powers, Djokovic will head to Roland Garros in May with a fourth shot in five years at completing a rare career grand slam sweep following his latest crushing Australian Open final triumph over Andy Murray.
“Djoker Slam. Not bad, I like that one”, said the 28-year-old Serbian, referring to his nickname, the Djoker.
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After taking a two-set lead, it was always going to be a waiting game for the top-seeded player. I made a break in the second. Djokovic, who said beforehand he expected a long battle in the final, was relieved it was over in three sets, although there were plenty of long rallies in between some that were curtailed by a string of unforced errors.
