Shanghai: There are two Andy Murrays.

There is the one on the regular men's tour, and that player completed a fine week at the Shanghai Masters by ripping through Roger Federer and then, when the bumptious master of ceremonies wondered during the on-court presentations why the Scot does not smile much, responded by grinning like a loon.

Then there is the Andy Murray you see at the grand slams, and if Ordinary Andy were to play Grand Slam Andy over five sets, you would take the regular version to win in four.

Like the Great Wall of China, you can probably see Federer's ego from space, yet there were moments during the final when it seemed as though the most successful male tennis player in history, with his 16 slam titles, had a head full of self-doubt and self-pity.

Murray did that to Federer, by turning in one of the most accomplished performances of his career to win 6-3, 6-2 for his heaviest defeat of the Swiss.

In the outskirts of the city, Federer was Shanghai'd by the man from Dunblane, and it was not the first time that Murray had played some ultra-aggressive tennis to beat him in straight sets in the final of one of the Masters tournaments — which are the most important events after the four slams — as he also did so just a couple of months ago on a hard court in Toronto.

From his 13 matches against someone he considers to be the greatest of all time, Murray now has eight victories and five defeats, and the only player who has a better head-to-head record against Federer is Rafael Nadal, with 14 wins to seven losses. "I have had a great week and I have played some of my best tennis," Murray said, yet, in many ways, his victory did not tell us much that we did not already know.

Surely everyone was already aware that Murray has the talent to beat Federer or anyone else on the scene, as in Toronto he welted the ball past Nadal and then Federer in successive matches. And it was a while ago that Murray established that he can win Masters tournaments, as he now has six of these trophies.

Murray can carry on stuffing his face with Masters trophies for years to come, yet, whether he likes it or not, he is going to be defined by how he performs in the white heat of grand slam competition.

Inexplicable slump

And there have been times during Murray's career when — and perhaps this has been because he has wanted to win so badly — he has been a diminished force in the grand slam cities. In between slapping Federer around a bit in Canada and China, Murray played one of the oddest, grouchiest matches of his grand slam life when he lost in the third round of the US Open to Stanislas Wawrinka, the ‘wrong' Swiss.

Would Murray have squabbled with himself in that way if that had been the third round of a Masters tournament? Unlikely. Murray looks more comfortable with himself and his game when he is at the Masters events.

It should be remembered that, despite his overall positive record against Federer, Murray lost to him when it really mattered, with defeats in the final of the 2008 US Open and on the second Sunday of this season's Australian Open. In both of those slam finals, Murray did not win a set.

Despite Murray's maddeningly inconsistent tennis this year, he could hardly have had a better week in the port city, as earlier in the tournament it was confirmed that he had been ushered inside the roped-off VIP room of men's tennis by qualifying for next month's season-ending event in London, a tournament restricted to the world's best eight players. And, even against Federer, he did not drop a set.

It was a performance from Murray that felt dispiriting as well as uplifting; as entertaining as it was to watch such brilliant tennis, there was no ignoring the other thought in your head: ‘Why can't he do this at the slams?'