We should know by now never to take anything for granted as far as Andy Murray is concerned.
I was one of those who thought his summer momentum would take him all the way in the US Open but I guess, in hindsight, it shouldn’t come as a shock that he ran out of steam.
The warning signs were there.
The early rounds were a bit more up and down than we’ve become used to in the Grand Slams and Murray was speaking about struggling to get to sleep.
Tiredness must have been a factor against Kei Nishikori.
People are saying he was back to his old ways of getting distracted by decisions and crowd noises but that’s probably down to mental tiredness as much as anything.
He’s paid the price for hardly having any time off court in the last few months but, with Wimbledon and an Olympic gold in the bag, I don’t think he’ll be complaining.
I’m sure that by the time the Aussie Open comes round at the start of next season we’ll see him physically and mentally sharp again and ready to rack up a couple more majors.
In the short term it’s definitely good news for Britain’s Davis Cup chances in Glasgow.
Playing the US Open final and then the Davis Cup semi-final – probably three games – would have been a huge ask for a guy who is near to running on empty.
I’m gutted to be missing it. Last year’s semi was one of the best sporting atmospheres I can remember.
A home crowd will definitely be needed to try and squeeze one more big weekend out of Murray at the end of a gruelling summer.
* Things are going great here in Edmonton.
It was the usual gruelling journey though.
Edinburgh to London, London to Toronto, Toronto to Edmonton and 27 hours later we were here.
It’s been useful to have Dave Leith, our physical prep coach, out here with us for this trip. Dave’s been giving us some pointers about the best way to get over jet lag.
We’ve had a few tough gym sessions and some really good on-ice sessions to lead us into this event.
By the time you read this we’ll have played our first game against Fujisawa from Japan. They were the team who took the silver medal at the Worlds last year. They were just machines who kind of came from nowhere.
They were one of the teams who were very switched on to the directional sweeping that had crept into the sport.
It will be really interesting to how the changes made to fabrics impacts different teams.
Because of all the sweeping controversy last year, and directional sweeping craziness, new guidelines have been brought in and there is just one generic fabric all the teams have to use.
This should benefit the more technically good teams. Before the rule change you could throw wide, tight and heavy and you could ‘guide’ the rock with the sweeping.
Now I think we will be seeing a lot more misses but it will be a much fairer game of proper curling.