Jamie Murray must wait at least another year to win what he considers his biggest prize after he and partner Bruno Soares were out-lasted in their Wimbledon men’s doubles quarter-final.

The older Murray brother is already a Wimbledon champion, having won the mixed doubles title with Jelena Jankovic nine years ago but the number one player in the men’s doubles rankings has made no secret of viewing that as a more important event.

Having reached the finals of Wimbledon and the US Open with previous partner John Peers, switching to playing with Brazilian Soares brought him his Grand Slam breakthrough at the beginning of this year when they won the Australian Open.

However after surviving an epic third round clash when they eventually saw off Croatia’s mate Pavic and New Zealander Michael Venus 16-14 in a match that lasted more than five hours, they eventually ran out of juice as they succumbed 10-8 in the final set of the quarter-final to French pair Julien Benneteau and Edouard Roger-Vasselin.

The defeat was all the more cruel because they had battled back from two sets to love down to give themselves a chance and also recovered from being a break down in that final set.

“I’m obviously super-disappointed right now,” said Murray.

“To fight so hard to come back from that situation where we were getting out-played.

“They hardly missed a shot the first three sets, but we kept fighting, fighting and managed to somehow win that third set tie-break.

“Then in the fourth set I think we were the better team.

“We played a good tie-break as well, so to lose whatever the score was 10-8, 11-9, it’s just a shame to lose after putting in that much effort to get back into the match and turn it round the way we did.

“We can obviously be proud of that effort, it’s just frustrating not to see it out.”