To his credit Murray, who beat Djokovic to win the USOpen and Wimbledon titles and probably would have claimed several more but for the Serb, rose to the challenge.
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“It was a tough two weeks”, he said.
Djokovic is undefeated in 2016, capturing the Doha title and now the Australian Open to start the season.
Novak Djokovic is placing no limits on what he might achieve after storming to a record-equalling sixth Australian Open title on Sunday night.
Yet of those rivals, Nadal was the last to win a slam, at the 2014 French Open, since when Djokovic has added another five to take his career tally to 11, level with Rod Laver and Bjorn Borg.
– Djokovic (2008, 2011-13, 2015-16) has now won six Australian Opens, matching the record of Roy Emerson (1961, 1963-67).
There was also the unexpected collapse of his father-in-law Nigel Sears last weekend, when Murray admitted he had been close to pulling out of the tournament, before Sears was given the all-clear.
It used to be a running joke when players won the first Grand Slam event of the year that they would be asked, at some stage in their post-match press conference, whether they thought they might be able to win the calendar year Grand Slam.
“I feel like I’ve been here before”, Murray said, clearly emotional after his defeat.
The world No. 1 closed out the result on his third match point with an ace down the T after two hours and 53 minutes before paying tribute to his team. “Thank you so much for all your support”, Murray said, choking back tears and waving to the crowd as he walked away from the microphone.
The Scot became only the second man since tennis went professional to lose five finals at the same Grand Slam but, the other – Ivan Lendl – sandwiched his five losses at the US Open with a hat-trick of wins from 1985-87.
Murray’s wife, Kim Sears, is due to give birth in early February, and he said before the tournament even began that he’d be willing to jump on a plane back to Britain if she went into labor while he was in Australia – even if it meant missing the final. Djokovic only had his serve broken twice.
“I’m just quite looking forward to getting home now”, he commented.
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“Andy, you are a great champion, a great person and a great friend and I’m sure you are going to have more opportunities to fight for this trophy”, Djokovic said at the trophy presentation. Djokovic reeled off five straight points to break and served out the set when the No. 2 seed dumped a forehand into the net.
