Andy Murray’s splendour cannot disguise threadbare state of Davis Cup

No famous Belgians, huh? I see. Well, excuse me, but even if we put to one side Eddie Merckx and the guild of hairdressers that gave the world both Tintin and Marouane Fellaini, aren’t we forgetting someone? Do you really mean to tell me that the men’s doubles final of the 2012 Farmers Classic can have been effaced, so soon, from the tennis pantheon?

OK, so Ruben Bemelmans nowadays spends much of his time on the Challenger Tour. But that can’t possibly tell the whole story. After all, had the Murray brothers happened to slip up in the doubles last weekend, then the Davis Cup final would have hinged on a showdown between Bemelmans and Kyle Edmund. And, since Britain’s first Davis Cup since 1936 has been acclaimed as more instructive of Andy Murray’s stature even than his Wimbledon and US Open titles, you can only assume that this would have represented one of the most momentous match-ups in our sporting history.

In the event, Andy’s three points from three matches – including the one shared with Jamie – killed the fifth rubber, which was duly abandoned. But Bemelmans will always have the Farmers Classic. In sharing his one and only ATP title with Xavier Malisse, after all, he beat those other British titans, Jamie Delgado and Ken Skupski. And we can’t take that away from him.

Now don’t start. I know, I know: why is it that some peevish voice will reliably start damning any and all British excellence with the faintest of praise, with mean-spirited quibbles and supercilious qualifications?

Well, actually that’s not the point here. Through the Davis Cup, even those of us without the slightest pretence to expertise have been able to perceive and celebrate afresh how Murray’s outstanding talent is harnessed to a commensurate character. The ardour and humility with which he variously carried and inspired his compatriots, throughout the competition, evokes Gareth Bale in getting Wales to the Euros. And his courteous suspension of team celebrations, to commiserate with the Belgians, reiterated that his class is not confined to the game itself.

But the slightly unnerving euphoria infecting the nation last weekend should not be allowed to serve as a fig leaf to some seriously embarrassing deficiencies. Murray himself said as much, of course, with regard to the Lawn Tennis Association – but another witness, no less authoritative, meanwhile expresses parallel reservations about the Davis Cup itself.

Carlos Moya, once a Davis Cup winner himself, could not stifle his alarm over the possibility that the tie, at 2-2, would have been settled between the world Nos 100 and 108. He tried to remain scrupulously respectful of the achievements and potential of Edmund and Bemelmans, and it can’t be stressed enough that you wouldn’t fancy your chances against either on the vicarage lawn. As it was, moreover, Murray clinched the title by beating an opponent ranked as high as No 16. But Moya refused to pretend that Bemelmans v Edmund could ever have provided a credible climax to the tennis calendar.

Moya quit as Spain’s Davis Cup captain because he became so disenchanted by the apathy of top players. Last year, true, Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka got it into their heads – and hearts – to win the Davis Cup for Switzerland. Yet when the Belgians found themselves up against the defending champions, just three months later, they faced the world Nos 321, 344 and 576. That left them just two more rounds to the final, and they avoided having to play Serbia in the second of them after Novak Djokovic took a holiday instead of playing in Buenos Aires.

Who could blame him? He had won Wimbledon five days earlier. Djokovic has denounced the antediluvian format of the Davis Cup, four weekends strewn across the season, as “very, very bad, especially for the top players”. And, of course, such disaffection becomes self-fulfilling. This year, for instance, the other elite players may even suspect that Murray simply needed to fill a void after failing to win a major.

I wouldn’t pretend to know the solution. Perhaps the new president of the International Tennis Federation – apparently much less conservative than his predecessor – will explore the possibility of making the tournament biennial and/or compressing the final stages into something closer to the World Cup: a single, glitzy venue for the last four or eight – or even the full 16, to spend two or three weeks building to a crescendo of media rights gold.

But what I do know is to beware the hysteria that infected so many Britons last weekend. Yes, we should salute a great champion; properly respect the contribution of his brother; and remember, also, James Ward’s epic defeat of John Isner back in March. But we must be honest with ourselves. Moya said that if the format doesn’t change, we will end up with finals like this one every year. And he meant it to sting.

We must recognise the difference between a great sporting achievement, and events pumped up by the shrivelling bellows of the BBC as orchestrated, self-consciously “great” sporting occasions. The Davis Cup has an authentic emperor, in Murray, but it surely needs some new clothes.