Copyright © 2015. No duplication is permitted without permission from Bob Larson Tennis.

Jamie Murray has as big a couple of weeks in prospect as his much more famous younger brother Andy. The 29 year-old doubles player will be a front line part of Britain’s Davis Cup final team and before that he will contest the Barclays ATP Tour Finals for the first time. But the London tournament will mark the last time the elder Murray plays alongside his Australian doubles partner John Peers.

Murray and Melbourne’s Peers announced last month that they will go their separate ways in 2016, the Scot playing alongside Bruno Soares of Brazil and Peers likely teaming up with Finland’s Henri Kontinen.

However, Murray acknowledged he is taking a massive gamble after now acknowledging he suffered the consequences of prematurely breaking up his other long-term partnership with Minnesotan Eric Butorac .  “Obviously it’s risky stuff, especially with the year we’ve had,” admitted the far less combustible of the two brothers from Dunblane. “But I guess like when a stock’s high sometimes it’s a good time to move on.”

This year the Murray/Peers partnership has won ATP titles in Brisbane and Hamburg, and reached the finals of both Wimbledon and the US Open.  In total they have lifted seven trophies since linking up together after the 2013 Australian Open and the crack in the relationship only occurred after the recent US Open when Murray was keen to take a break and miss the Asian swing.

“I think when we talked about it, I put it out there. I said, if you want, we can just play the Tour Finals, and that’s it, and you can play with other people these tournaments if you want, that’s your choice,” said Murray to the Daily Mail, being more revealing about the split than ever before. “But I’d rather just try to finish the year as strong as we can, John wanted to do the same and we’ve kept going.

“We’ve played three years together, it’s a bit of a mutual thing, we both wanted a bit of a change, fresh start, try something different, see what happens. Obviously we’ve had a great year, won a lot of matches, some big tournaments, but I’m looking forward to playing with Bruno.”

Murray has known the veteran Brazilian socially for several years and ironically he and Peers had to play Soares and his current partner, Austria’s Alexander Peya in recent tournaments in Vienna and Basel.

Honors were split in those two matches and Murray insisted: “I think he’ll be a great partner for me with his style of play I think. Yeah, it’s a good amount of time. John and I have been through a lot, a lot of good experiences, especially this year, a lot of great results, we’ve spent most of the last three years of our lives together.

“It’ll be different next year, getting to know somebody else, forming a new relationship. People chop and change all the time. But I’ve got a chance with Bruno as I could be playing with him for the next three or four years. That’s my goal, to get some longevity out of it.’

Copyright © 2015. No duplication is permitted without permission from Bob Larson Tennis.