Late-blooming Jamie Murray believes the World Tennis Challenge will be the ultimate Austrlian Open form guide

WHY Jamie Murray has singled out the World Tennis Challenge as tennis’ best form guide for the Australian Open doubles comp.

Andy and Jamie Murray celebrate winning a Davis Cup doubles match. Picture: Andy Buchanan/AFP

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DUAL grand slam and Davis Cup champion Jamie Murray believes the World Tennis Challenge shapes as the ideal form guide for this year’s Australian Open with a blockbuster doubles field.

World doubles No. 6 Murray will play alongside regular partner Bruno Soares and face reigning Australian Open champions John Peers and Henri Kontinen and the most successful team of the modern era in Bryan twins Mike and Bob.

It means Memorial Drive will be the host to the most accomplished doubles field in the lead-up to the Melbourne Park major. And as much as it is an exhibition, Murray said a lot could be learned about the teams’ Australian Open prospects in Adelaide next week.

“Peersy and Kontinen did really well last year, won their first Grand Slam and the Tour final for the second time in a row, and obviously the Bryans, who have won about a million tournaments and will go down as the best combination ever,” Murray said.

“It will be a lot of fun for us to play against those guys and great preparation for Melbourne as well.

“We’ll go out and play flat out and treat it as good practice for the Australian Open, work on a few things — obviously it’s important at the start of the year to get a lot of matches so for us to get two matches against two of the best teams in the world is perfect for us.

“We’ll all be going 100 per cent.”

Brothers Andy and Jamie Murray during the Davis Cup for the UK semi-final in 2016. Picture: AFP Photo / Andy Buchanan

Murray, 31, the older brother of former world No. 1 singles player Andy, has been around for a while.

He turned heads as a junior at prestigious events such as the Orange Bowl in the US and was earmarked for a fine career both in singles and doubles.

But it turned out his doubles ranking advanced at a much quicker rate, and while still in his early 20s Murray decided it was the career for him — his best chance at facing the best in the world at venues such as the centre court of majors in the doubles and mixed doubles.

The call was this: play the lower-tier singles tournaments at tucked-away venues and try to climb the rankings in both forms of the game or cash in on the wave he was riding in doubles.

It wasn’t a very difficult decision — I didn’t have much of a singles career.”

“It wasn’t a very difficult decision — I didn’t have much of a singles career,” Murray said.

“I think I was 20 or 21 and my doubles ranking was between 100 and 150 and my singles was in the 800s.

“For me it was an easy decision: I wanted to play the biggest tournaments in the world against the best players in the world and I could see myself doing that in doubles.”

For all of his successes — Murray has won the Australian Open and US Open in men’s doubles, both in 2016, and three mixed doubles titles, most recently the US Open in September with Martina Hingis — to go with Great Britain’s famous Davis Cup success in 2015, Murray feels like he’s only starting out.

For much of his 20s he felt like his career was just chugging along at a steady pace and it has not been until the past few years that he has entrenched himself as one of the best doubles players in the world.

Murray put it down to trying to be something he wasn’t — a big hitter such as the majors of the best doubles players — rather than believing in the craftsmanship and deft touch that first helped make him a title contender.

“At the end of 2007 I was ranked around 30 but I guess when you’re young ... I think I just assumed that everything would keep going up on an upward curve,” Murray said. “And then I started to plateau a bit and go away from the things that made me successful.

“I was looking at other players and seeing what they were doing and at the time all the guys at the top had big serves, big ground strokes, big returns.

“It wasn’t my style at all but I kind of felt like I needed to develop those skills in order to get higher.

“But it got me away from my strengths for a few years until I finally got around to believing that my style could be successful.

“Slowly but surely it kind of turned around.

“For me, I’ve played a lot but I haven’t really played at the real top except for the last three years or so,” Murray said.

“So for me, it’s about playing at the real top and compete for the biggest prizes in the game for as long as I can.

“Wimbledon will always be a huge goal as well, being a home Grand Slam.

“If we could win Wimbledon and the French Open and have all the Grand Slams that would be an amazing achievement.”