It was approaching midnight and most of the fans had long gone, hurrying for late trains away from North Greenwich, as Andy Murray hit ball after ball in the empty arena that had been the scene of his perplexing defeat in two sets by Stan Wawrinka.
His back, which appeared to give up on him in one stretched moment, was not a problem. But his head was, the one holding the fringe he had mysteriously clipped during his loss to Rafael Nadal two nights earlier; the one that decided for some unstated reason to move his team and his family away from their courtside box up into the gods during his final match; the one that urged him to refuse the likeable Swiss a request to replay a serve after he was interrupted by a fan.
Outside, the temperature tumbled towards freezing. Murray’s mood was as dark as the wind-whipped night. The rhythm wouldn’t click for him, and he was angry, kicking a racket away after one disjointed rally with his coach, Jonas Bjorkman, in which he struggled to get the ball in the court.
Every athlete has moments like this, many of them. It is part of the impossible quest for perfection. But while David Ferrer, Tomas Berdych and Kei Nishikori could leave London for warmer, gentler surroundings and the end of their long seasons, Murray had one more task, perhaps his biggest since winning Wimbledon: to help Great Britain win the Davis Cup for the first time in 79 years.
A brief conversation with him revealed little about his plans for the momentous occasion in Ghent next week – which has been his priority all year – except maybe a sullen determination to regroup.
He had, “no idea” when he would travel, although the rest of the team would be on their way on Sunday.
Would meeting up with the team and the captain, Leon Smith, lift his spirits?
“Yes obviously to have something like that just round the corner is good. But right now I am very disappointed.”
Murray loves a challenge and is usually at his best in his adversity so there is cause for perverse optimism in his downbeat attitude to the final against Belgium and the chance to knock over one more Fred Perry record.
“It is a huge event, obviously,” he says. Obviously.
“But, like anything, I had no idea what it was going to be like to win my first grand slam or Olympic gold or Wimbledon. I have no idea because I haven’t experienced it before. Obviously doing it with your team for your country, with my brother in the team, I would imagine it would mean loads to me.
“I have put a lot of effort into it this year – the whole team has over the last five or six years. It is great to have the opportunity, but I am not getting carried away. I know it is going to be extremely tough, the turnaround is very, very quick and it is going to be far from easy.”
When it was put to him that he had rarely appeared more frustrated in defeat, he said, “I feel like I could have done better. It was an important week for me and I am just disappointed with the way I played. I feel like I could have done a lot of things better and when I had opportunities today…
“When you make mistakes like that [there were 30 unforced errors in less than two hours of tennis], it is more frustrating some times than when your opponent is out-playing you. When I played Roger in the final at Wimbledon, he played great at the end of the match. But when I had my opportunity today, I wasn’t good enough.”
But he is good enough. Way good enough. Too good for Belgium’s best player, David Goffin, in Paris two weeks ago. That was on a hard court, the final is on clay: and that has been troubling Murray from the moment the venue was announced. It is part of the unwinnable urge to be perfect – without which he would fall short at just plain amazing.
After a couple of days practising on clay, he should be fine. He has no choice. His teammates, his country, are depending on him. Apart from blips like Friday night, this has been his most convincing season, the year, after all, when he won his first two titles on clay after a decade of trying. Perhaps he could dwell on that this week.
