Ivan Lendl, the former world no. 1 and current coach of Andy Murray, has said that the difference between Murray and his conqueror in the Australian Open final - Novak Djokvic was very little. Djokovic beat Murray in four sets in the finals in Melbourne to win his third consecutive Australian Open title.

Speaking to the Telegraph, Lendl said, "As I said in New York, there’s so little in it. I was just looking at the statistics and Novak won 13 points more than Andy — 13 points is nothing. 6-3, 6-2 in the last two sets looks comfortable but it was only 13 points in the match.

“I’m obviously not happy that he didn’t win, but I thought he had a very good tournament altogether. He played a tough match with Roger, played a very tough match with Novak, and he did very well the first five matches as well.

“Dani [Vallverdu, Murray’s hitting partner] made a good point – that other than when he played Novak here two years ago, he has always played the No1 player in the world in the finals, and those are difficult to win.

"Andre Agassi beat Rainer Schüttler, I beat Miloslav Mecir. I’m not trying to say they were bad players, however they were not No1. In this era, the top four are clearly better than everyone else. You don’t get to play the No7 in the finals.

This is a tough era. I just hope Andy will keep putting himself in position and something will come his way again.”