THIS was the cruellest of goodbyes. Over the course of the last three years Jamie Murray's partnership with John Peers has been a blessing to both men but a beautiful partnership hasn't ended in such brutal fashion since Tony Blair and Gordon Brown sat down to chat over a bottle of wine at Granita restaurant.
This year alone the elder Murray sibling and his Australian partner had reached two Grand Slam finals and until yesterday they still had designs of ending the year as the world's best doubles pairing. But their hopes of reaching the last four of the ATP World Tour finals foundered in the most dramatic of circumstances with this 7-6 (5), 6-7 (5), (14-16) defeat to the Bryan Brothers.
Both men have already agreed to work with different partners next year, Murray with Brazil's Bruno Soares and Peers with Henri Kontinen, and as harsh as it was to say it, on the strength of this performance you could understand why. While Murray, all instinct and energy at the net, can rarely have played better, at times last night, especially on the biggest points, Peers may hardly played worse. While the Scottish/Australian duo saved four match points in an epic Match Tie Break - one courtesy of a blistering Peers return - they also spurned five match points of their own, with the Australian missing a simple forehand put away.
There was no finger pointing afterwards but few last night would have been arguing against Jamie's decision to take a two-week break after next weekend's Davis Cup then start again. "We had our chance to close out the match and didn't do it," said Jamie. "So we're sitting here out of the tournament.
"It [the partnership] has been great," the 29-year-old added. "Now we're ready to move on to other things. Hopefully we can keep the success we've had this year. We've got our reasons. I think it's kind of mutual. I think we're both looking to do something else. That's it. That's life. We take the decision and we move on. Maybe it will turn out to be a good decision, maybe it will turn out to be a bad decision. I don't know. But that's what we've come to. We look ahead now and look forward to starting new partnerships with new players."
With Murray in particular playing some inspired tennis, the Scottish/Australian duo raced into a first set lead and clung on to take it in a tie-break. They hung tough to take the second set that way too, only to spurn a 5-3 advantage, but things were about to get worse. Jamie's mum Judy, wife Alejandra and coach Alejandra were all off their feet when, with Peers appearing to step up his game, the No 4 seeds established a 9-5 lead in the match tie-break but the Bryans still weren't done. The losing lead ate away at Peers in particular and when one last moonball flew long that was that.
"We've had a great journey together," said Peers. "It was definitely a mutual decision that we were ready to move on. Unfortunately didn't turn out the way we wanted to at the end with this tournament. But we wish each other the best."
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