Smith: I’d love to see Murray in Davis Cup side but rest is best for him now

February and March], then you hit the clay season and the grass season, there ain’t much time. So this is probably the best time.”

Smith, pictured,has known Murraysince the Scot was a spindly lad with lots of potential and big ambitions. He knows him better than most people on the circuit. And he knows that Murray will get over Sunday’s defeat, even if it may take a while.

“The loss will be really tough to take,” he said. “His record in slams is unbelievable. He’s No 1 in the world, he was one of the favourites here and he’s out in the last 16 – and it’s going to hurt. But, once he gets his head around it, and once he gets enough people reminding him he’s still No1 in the world – he’s grown that gap even more this week – he can puts some distance between himself and the rest over the coming months with Indian Wells, and Miami in particular.

“He will be reminded enough times by those round him of what a run he’s on. It’s one match. It’s a sore one just now, but he’ll come back.”

As the tournament recovered from Murray’s loss, which came hard on the heels of Novak Djokovic’s departure in the second round, the general consensus of opinion was that it was not a catastrophe. Murray’s record in Melbourne is rock solid – five finals reached – even if he has never won the title. And even world No 1s are entitled to have a bad day. Jonas Bjorkman, who was part of Murray’s coaching team in 2015, was surprised by the upset but not too concerned about the result.

“Novak and Andy have showed us so many times how good they are, so we are surprised,” he said. “Out of 100 matches, they play high quality in 99 of them and that one match out of 100 we are all surprised because they set such a high standard. That’s very impressive. That’s why we have these five guys that have been dominating the tennis for so many years now.

“Zverev had to play the best match of his life, even though Andy didn’t play his best tennis, that’s how good they are. It’s good to see they are human as well, that they can have an off-day. But everyone is surprised he didn’t hit the passing shots as clean or returning as