Wimbledon 2023: Jamie Murray on missing another title chance at All England Club

Jamie Murray column

Seven-time major doubles champion Jamie Murray is back as a BBC Sport columnist over the Wimbledon fortnight.

After his quarter-final defeat in the men's doubles, the 37-year-old Briton reflects on losing another opportunity to achieve his biggest career goal - winning the Wimbledon title.

When I was walking back from the court after losing in the Wimbledon quarter-finals, I was thinking it is one more opportunity to win the title gone.

I've made no secret that winning the Wimbledon men's title is the biggest goal over the rest of my career.

So it's frustrating that Michael Venus and I lost to German pair Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz - we got sucker punched a bit.

I think we dominated the first set and all of a sudden we were a set down. Then we lost serve again five minutes later. We were swimming upstream after that.

If we had taken one of two break points at the start of the match, which we probably could have done better on, then maybe we could have won that match 6-4 6-3 instead of getting bounced in two sets.

I think we were definitely playing well. We didn't take our opportunities and they took the two chances they had - and that was the match, unfortunately.

It was strange, I felt good on the court and I was playing well - I felt better than the previous matches too.

It is annoying but we will be back next year and go again.

'If it was five sets I think we could have come back'

This year at Wimbledon, there has been a big change in the men's doubles - the matches being reduced from five sets to three sets.

I know the All England Club have been thinking about making the move full-time for ages and they finally committed to doing it.

I'm on the fence with it.

Obviously on the tour we play a shorter format than that, but the points can be very short on grass and the matches can go by very fast.

The rest of the time on tour, when we're playing clay or hard courts, serve isn't as dominant.

We won two three-set matches, a straight-sets and today lost in straight sets, if it was five sets do I think we had a good chance of coming back? Yes, I think we could have done.

The way the match was going, we created so many chances.

I feel like I wish it was still five sets but I'm not super strong in that position.

Just grass-court doubles, it can be quick and not that easy to return a lot of balls in play, you see in the stats how high the percentage points won on serves is. It shows how dominant the serve is.

If it was longer I think guys would like more time to find rhythm pick up ball speed on the return.

But that's the way it is, it is not going to go back any time soon.

It would be nice if they had a hybrid, where later in the tournament it went to five sets.

I think there have been some amazing finals over the years, where there have been epic five-set matches and it is sad to lose that, given what the guys have given to the tournament in the latter stages.

That's a shame and maybe that's something they could look at, but I doubt it. I think three sets are here to stay and stay in line with what the other Grand Slams are doing.

'I'll be cheering Neal on'

Now I will switch off for a few days. It has been a long week because I've played a lot of tennis over the past four or five days.

We had long delays because of the rain, meaning I had days where I played two matches, also going to bed late, then having to get up early.

I might try to go up to Scotland for a few days to see my family, although I will follow the rest of the tournament on TV.

I'll certainly be hoping Neal Skupski can go on and win in the men's doubles - it would be great to have a British winner.

Neal and Wesley Koolhof have got a great chance, as good as anyone else left in the tournament. They will have home support as well which I think can help.

They're in the semi-finals, so only two matches away, and have been doing really well for the last year and a half.

They haven't quite won a Grand Slam title yet but I think they deserve one as much as anyone else.

Jamie Murray was speaking to BBC Sport's Jonathan Jurejko at Wimbledon.