As any Scot will tell you, glorious failure is a bit of a Scottish tradition. To be fair, there’s the odd sport where we’ve done far better than our numbers deserve. Formula 1, snooker, and, erm, women’s curling come to mind.

But as we all know, our national football team delights in nothing more than humbling the mighty when it hardly matters, then floundering in the face of the minnows, routinely resulting in a finale where nothing short of a miracle is needed, which we so nearly pull off, but not quite. (Can’t think when this last happened though.)

So some of us remain to be convinced that one Andrew Murray, tennis prodigy extraordinaire, is even of our genetic stock at all. A throwback? A mix up in maternity? I mean, this is tennis we’re talking about… a sport that requires athleticism, determination, huge reserves not just of skill but of stamina, cunning, and sponsorship. Could all the hype actually be true this time? A potential grand slam winner? Let’s give him the best coach in the world, to sack, then trust his obvious self-belief to see him through down under,in the first major tournament of his first (we’re told) truly competitive season…

Oh dear. Out in the first round. Business as usual. Fancy a game of darts, anyone?