Novak Djokovic believes Andy Murray can win a slam

If you had to guess which tennis player had visited the William Wallace Monument in the build-up to this year's Wimbledon, you would probably plump for Andy Murray, who was brought up just five miles away in Dunblane.

But you would be wrong. It was the world No.1, Novak Djokovic, who filled the short break between Paris and London with a holiday in Scotland.

He did not pop in for tea and oatcakes with Murray's grandparents, but he did take a picture of a road sign to Dunblane and send it to his old friend and rival.

"It was my girlfriend's birthday so we flew to Edinburgh and I took her on a surprise trip to Gleneagles," Djokovic said yesterday (Sunday).

"I went to Scotland when I played the Davis Cup in Glasgow [in 2006]. But I didn't have the chance to see how beautiful it is. The countryside is quite remarkable. We went to visit the William Wallace Monument and we saw the historic culture. We really liked it - although it rained for the two days. Which was expected in a way. I'll definitely be back."

So did he know he was so close to Murray's roots? "Yes, and I made a little picture for him. We were on the A80 I think [probably the A84, in fact] and there was a right turn just before Stirling Castle for Dunblane. So sent him a picture on my Blackberry and he replied: 'What are you doing there?'

"I told him: 'Mate, this hasn't been Photoshopped - I'm really here'!"

The Wallace Monument stands on the field where the Battle of Stirling Bridge (1297) was fought, and just a few miles from the site of the more famous Bannockburn (1314). Movie buffs will remember that Wallace himself was famously, if inaccurately, portrayed by Mel Gibson in a Hollywood film. An early proponent of Scottish independence, he was known as Braveheart - a soubriquet that, in a sporting sense, could equally well apply to Djokovic.

Djokovic's recent climb to the top of the world rankings stems from a fundamental change in approach. He was already a metronomic striker of the ball, a man whose unforced errors were so rare that he could go whole sets without missing a ball. But it was by adding a bolder streak that he became able to challenge the best.

"You have to go for your shots," Djokovic said, "especially against the big guys. If you don't they will be the ones who take over the control and the pace of the match, and you don't really have much chance from there.

"I haven't done that all my life. After I won my first grand slam - the Australian Open in 2008 - I struggled. I was very consistent with my results, but when I got to the semi-finals of grand slams I was losing all the matches against Federer and Nadal.

"All the matches were quite close, and I had my chances but I never stepped it up, and I never took the moment. That's something I have learned. It's a challenge mentally but you need to overcome it to be at the top."

So what about Murray, his close contemporary? Can he make the same transition from serial semi-finalist, and three-time runner-up, into a fully fledged grand slam champion?

"Everybody we met in Scotland was mentioning Andy," Djokovic said. "The driver who picked us up at the airport, the people who were in the hotel. They are proud of him and obviously the question they were asking the most is when is he going to win a grand slam.

"I said very soon because I really believe that. I really believe that he has the qualities. You can feel that there is a lot of expectations and pressure on his back. He feels it too, so I think it's a matter of at the latter stages of events - semi-finals, finals - if he is able to fight with that at the right moment. It's just a small margin that is missing."

Murray's quest will begin again tomorrow, and if he succeeds in finding his way past Djokovic, Nadal and Federer to a first Wimbledon title, he will deserve a monument of his own.