Djokovic and Murray show serves up box-office drama

In a quiet corner of the player warm-up gym yesterday at Melbourne Park, one of the countless invasive cameras dotted around the tournament area captured a significant moment.

- Tumaini Carayol

After 24 years of sharing the same locker room as adversaries, of avoiding eye contact before their matches and staying out of each other's way, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic stood face-to-face as Murray walked his new charge through their first pre-match pep talk together.

For a first-round match at a grand slam tournament, this was a trickier situation than either of them might have imagined. While player and coach have battled against the vast majority of people in the draw, and they are familiar with most players they have not, as the luck of the draw would have it, Djokovic found himself up against one of the few players in the 2025 Australian Open draw that he knew almost nothing about.

In his first scouting report, it was up to Murray to fill in the gaps and prepare Djokovic for the challenge of facing Nishesh Basavareddy, a talented 19-year-old American player competing in the main draw of a grand slam tournament for the first time in his career. Hours later, the Djokovic-Murray show began. With a camera trained on Murray throughout the match and his face predictably projected on the big screen at every opportunity, Murray entered the court wearing a smart, navy blue Castore tracksuit colour coordinated with the rest of the Djokovic team. He sat next to Carlos Gomez-Herrera, Djokovic's former hitting partner turned assistant.