MELBOURNE - After 960 points, 14 hours on court, barely any sleep, eight blisters, a few ice baths, more dialogue (with his players’ box) than in an Aaron Sorkin film, Andy Murray has left the Australian Open after the third round. The tournament feels emptier, the memory is full. To watch him struggle was the equivalent of listening to an athletic hymn.

Murray walks like a man who’s been given bad news. Head down. Mournfully. Then a point begins at the Open and he shakes the cement from his boots. Every shot is defiance, every point is vindication. A doctor apparently told him he’d never play professional sport. The doctor knows medicine, he doesn’t know great athletes.