Murray brothers triumph at the Battle of Brits in possible final swansong

Jamie Murray was at once a winner and a loser as the Schroders Battle of the Brits exhibition event concluded in Aberdeen on Thursday night.

Murray’s Scottish team were well beaten by their English rivals, as had looked likely from the moment that Cameron Norrie – who qualifies as a Scot via his Glaswegian father – confirmed that he would not be participating.

In the bigger picture, though, this was an excellent addition to the British tennis calendar, which gave the recent Davis Cup finals in Glasgow a run for their money. Jamie Murray was the impresario who put the whole shebang together, and he deserves credit for coming up with an exciting format, even down to the eccentric choice of team captains: former Open champion golfer Paul Lawrie for Scotland, and former QPR manager Ian Holloway for England.

“That was awesome,” said Jamie Murray after the last ball had been hit. “A great two days, three amazing sessions. It was so much fun.

“It's been a lot of work for two years, with everything set up to go last year and then ending up having to cancel really last minute [because of a Covid surge]. I really appreciate all the guys who made an effort to come and play and make it really special for us."

More than 20,000 fans visited the P&J Live Arena over the three sessions, and every one of them was treated to a fine display from the main attraction. Andy Murray may have been knighted at Buckingham Palace but he is worshipped here as a sporting deity.

On Wednesday night, the younger Murray had narrowly scraped past Jack Draper in what turned out to be Scotland’s only success in a live rubber. Thursday hinged on his afternoon meeting with Dan Evans, which again delivered some captivating drama.

These two men have been training together for over a decade. They know each other’s games so well that it was always going to be a tight affair, but Evans was notably pumped up for the contest. As he said earlier in the week, “I'd find it pretty difficult to play Andy on the tour and get in his face a bit. But because there's no points or anything playing here, and there's a big crowd, it'd be quite good fun to beat him here.”

Evans was indeed faster out of the blocks as he edged the first set, only for Murray to click into a magnificent serving rhythm and level things up. This meant a super tie-break to settle the issue – the second that Murray had played in as many days – and again he treated the fans to some characteristic escapology, once chipping back two Evans smashes to steal a point against the head.

But it was Evans who played the more courageous tennis, hitting some huge forehand winners in the dying moments to close out a 6-4, 3-6, 1-0 (10-8) victory. In the process, he demonstrated beyond doubt that this event is indeed a battle that is played at full tilt, rather than a confected entertainment in which the result has been determined in advance.

Evans’s win left England with an overall lead of 5-1. (As in the Laver Cup – which this event closely resembles – results are of escalating value, so that the first session offers one point per win, the second two and the third three.)

Any doubt was removed when Paul Jubb overcame Aidan McHugh in the showdown of the back-up singles players. (Draper, who turned 21 on Thursday, was only ever here to participate on the first evening.)

But there was still time for the Murray brothers’ double act to finish off the entertainment, as they beat Evans and Neal Skupski 6-3, 6-4 in the concluding rubber.

There might have been a little extra spice in this match-up after Evans had publicly declared that he should have been picked for the Davis Cup doubles rubbers in Glasgow in September, rather than the chosen pairing of Andy Murray and Joe Salisbury (who had travelled up to Aberdeen only to be laid low by injury).

For Andy Murray, this was clearly an emotional moment. “It’s been a long time since I played with Jamie,” he said, “so to do it here in Scotland is really special. We need to treat these moments like we might not get the opportunity again because you know, we're getting on a bit, and you never know what's around the corner.”

The final score read 8-4 in England’s favour but that was hardly the point. The intention was to bring competitive tennis to a far-flung outpost that has never seen the like, and the goal was triumphantly achieved.