HAPPY new tennis year. Same as the last one. Sir Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic spent 2016 locked in a death struggle for all the major honours in tennis and if the evidence of a remarkable Qatar Exxon Mobil Open final between the two players in Doha on Saturday is to believed, they will exert a similar stranglehold on the sport throughout the next 12 months. Not least in the Australian Open, which gets under way in Melbourne Park on Sunday night UK time. It is an event where these two men have met four times in finals, with Djokovic winning all four.

There is one notable difference as 2017 begins, though. While the Scot staged an unlikely surge to supplant the Serb as World No 1 in the latter part of last year, now it is Djokovic who is the hunter and Murray who is the hunted. While he was required to save five match points just to get past Fernando Verdasco in the semi final, Djokovic landed a psychological blow of sorts ahead of Melbourne when he ended the Scot's 28-match winning run with a 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 final victory in Doha. It was a win which he hopes will see him regain the whip hand in a rivalry between these two men which has seen him win 25 and lose just 11 and the Serb knows will reclaim top spot in the rankings if he wins the Australian Open and Murray is unable to reach the semi-finals.

It was an aggressive, at times dominating performance from Djokovic, at times too much when he earned a point penalty for smashing up a racquet and firing a ball in anger at his coaching box. But the match could have gone either way and Miles Maclagan for one feels Murray has plenty of fire in his belly too, dream six months or not. He doesn't feel his former pupil will be unduly troubled by losing his unbeaten run on the eve of the Aussie open.

"I am not too sure Andy will be troubled," Maclagan told Eurosport. "It was a great match and there is a cigarette paper between them. They push each other so hard, you often don't get the momentum sliding just one way. Djokovic's resilience was very, very high.

"Andy is in very good shape, it is a tournament which he clearly loves," added the Zambian-born Scot, who coached Murray between 2007 and 2010. "I do think that he has crossed the hurdle in terms of what he has achieved in the last six months, it will give him that extra belief. That confidence, that extra bit of relaxation which doesn't stress you out as much. With Djokovic's growing confidence also comes a little bit of relaxation and this is important because if these two were to play in the final it could almost be won before that. If one of these two arrives in the final fatigued, then it is very difficult for them. We have seen Andy stung by that a couple of times in the past."

While the likes of Kei Nishikori, Milos Raonic, Stan Wawrinka, Grigor Dimitrov - and the fit again Roger Federer - should not be discounted, the Australian Open will be the first Grand Slam in Murray's career where he enters as the top-ranked player in the draw. Maclagan doesn't feel that will provide any extra pressure, though it could fire up Djokovic even more.

"I think losing No 1 would have hurt Djokovic a lot," said Maclagan. "It is sport, they are alpha males, they all want to be the best out there. He would have been very comfortable being World No 1, and he wouldn't want to hand it away to one of his biggest rivals.

"I don't see that affecting Andy too much because they are so used to dealing with expectation from everyone around them," he added. "You hear many greats saying when they have a great year and become No 1, the fire goes out a little bit. But I don't see that happening with Andy, he still seems to have a lot of fire left."

Murray, who has still never beaten Djokovic after losing the first set of any match, didn't seem unduly dismayed as he left Doha and packed his bags for Melbourne. "It was obviously a tough one to lose but it was a great way to start the year," he said. "It was high level tennis, some of the points were physically tough. It was a great way to start the year playing like that and I look forward to the next few weeks."