There were times throughout Roger Federer’s demolition of Andy Murray in the Australian Open final when was one was reminded of the Terminator movies, with the Swiss maestro seemingly impervious to whatever artillery was flung at him, whereas the Scot proved all too vulnerable to his opponent’s blitzkrieg tactics. Unfortunately, for those millions of his compatriots, who were watching the action as part of the Caledonian diaspora, Arnold Schwarzenegger didn’t turn up in the final reel to save the day. Instead, this was another opportunity missed by Murray, who, despite being only 22, must be inwardly wondering whether he is ever going to secure a Grand Slam title.

That might seem a harsh judgment, given the sheer brilliance of Federer’s tennis during the opening two sets of his 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 triumph. Yet just consider the evidence. Murray had recognised in advance that it would require something special to prevail over the best player who has ever graced the game, but it’s one thing to devise a plan, quite another to execute it successfully or even with any semblance of conviction. Nobody should doubt the Dunblane man’s work ethic, but time and again, his efforts foundered on the unswerving magnificence of his opponent’s repertoire of strokes, which were honed to the nth degree, and which he produced with metronomic regularity as the gulf between the two competitors was harshly exposed in the first 90 minutes. Indeed, for much of the proceedings – and this will be the most sobering realisation for Murray and his acolytes – it was a case of him clinging on for dear life, striving for damage limitation, and preventing the world No 1 from simply cruising to his goal, as he had done against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the semi-finals. Murray fared better than that, but there were plenty of occasions where he had to generate minor heroics merely to hold on to his serve and, whatever gloss his supporters put on the action, he displayed both a worrying fragility under pressure and troubling inability to seize those chances which came his way.

There was no disgrace in being overpowered while the first set unfolded. At that juncture of the contest, Federer was mastering his spin like a cross between Shane Warne and Malcolm Tucker and the signs in the Rod Laver Arena which carried the message: “Ssh! Quiet! Genius at Work”, were simply proclaiming what was obvious to anybody surveying the Fed Express. Namely, that when this fellow cranks up through the gears, he is capable of an awful beauty in his destruction of rivals, interspersing savage forehands with sublime volleys, smashes and a capacity for covering the court and plotting three or four moves ahead which can reduce the most willing foe to knackered impotence.

Murray couldn’t be faulted for his enterprise in that direction. He battled with all the guts and gallus qualities which he has demonstrated on his climb up the ATP rankings and, whether saving two break points in the fifth game of the second set or three in the next, one could see him digging deep, desperately hoping that the hurricane on the other side of the net would blow itself out. It was when it did that the causes for concern arose.

Basically, Murray was granted a golden opportunity to claw back into the tussle at the outset of the third set. Having engineered a break and progressed to a 5-2 lead, there should have been no way back if the Scot had displayed the requisite amount of killer instinct in that situation. But, on the contrary, he started to flap, betrayed signs of nerves, and sought refuge in twinges on his ankle and back. The bottom line is that whereas Federer turned the screw ruthlessly when he was at his best, Murray too often looked as if he was waiting for something to go wrong and his body language wasn’t what one would expect from a man ranked 3 or 4 in the world, and somebody who has scarcely been tested in the previous rounds of the competition. Even when Federer had reduced the deficit and the climactic tie-break arrived, there were still ample openings from which Murray could have seized the moment and swept us into a fourth set. Yet there was no genuine conviction when it mattered and, repeatedly, he let his opponent off the hook. If that was frustrating for those on the sidelines, it must have been maddening for Murray himself, but his movement in the closing stages suggested that even if he had won the breaker, he wouldn’t have had anything left in the tank for the next challenge.

Clearly, this raises questions over his physical toughness. But there must also be the worry that he recognises the clock is ticking down on his Grand Slam ambitions. Yes, he is still young, although he turns 23 in May, and precious few people have won their first major tournament later than that. It would be wrong to be overly pessimistic, and the more so in light of Rafael Nadal’s injury concerns, the suspicion that Novak Djokovic is not going to get any better, and the feeling that the likes of Marin Cilic and Juan Martin Del Potro will not reach their peak for another couple of years.

But, as Murray knows, time is no longer a luxury. He has to nail that Slam and do it with rather more conviction than we saw when he went for broke in Melbourne.