Andy Murray has landed in Valencia for next week’s ATP tournament to pick up on his interrupted year, six weeks after the Davis Cup tie against Poland when he played three times in successive days and exacerbated the damage to his left wrist.

The world No 4 ought to be daisy fresh. However, the women’s tour reaches its full stop here and edges are fraying everywhere you look.

Beaten 6-2, 6-2 by Jelena Jankovic in the last of her round-robin matches in the white group at the Sony Ericsson Championships, Caroline Wozniacki, of Denmark, probably thought her stand-out season was over. She stayed behind to watch Victoria Azarenka, the Belarussian, play the second reserve, Agnieszka Radwanska, of Poland, and when the world No 6 led by a set and 5-2, must have been thinking of wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen. Bit by bit, though, Azarenka came apart. The games slid through her fingers, she had her left thigh taped, her hamstring pinged, and was beaten 4-6, 7-5, 4-1 retired.

Wozniacki went into a full body cramp on Thursday, she was not exactly racing for all her worth yesterday, and Jankovic’s victory — securing the Serb a place in the last four — was more routine than she had expected.

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It is the perennial worry of these end-of-season championships, when so much is on the line but legs and brains are all but frazzled.

The semi-final line-up pits Jankovic against Venus Williams, with Wozniacki facing Serena. What price the second sisterly meeting of the week and a final that somehow seems utterly appropriate? Tired or not, they are still conditioned to play in the biggest matches and that is exactly what awaits this weekend.