IN one way, Jamie Baker sees Andy Murray’s elev ation to the top tier in tennis as beneficial to his cause. No longer do phrases of assurance like “you can do it” sound glib because there is proof: it can be done. But there is a downside. Now one young Scot has joined the elite, the next contender will be probed and scrutinised to a much higher degree.

Baker, the 20-year-old from Glasgow’s west end, closely shadowed today’s maestro through the junior ranks before Murray – one year his junior – galloped ahead in a dumbfounding teenage spurt. As he prepares to join him on Davis Cup duty for the first time, Baker, still a nobody in world terms but a highly- rated British asset, is keen to assert the futility of comp arisons with his erstwhile little-league doubles partner from Dunblane.

“There is no point in anybody comparing me to what he did,” Baker said, before linking up with Murray, the retiring Greg Rusedski and Jamie Delgado, who was a late replacement yesterday for Alan Mackin, to prepare for this week’s trip to the Ukraine. “You’d be hard pushed to find anyone in the Open era who has done what he did. Between the start of last year and the start of this year he went from 500 in the rankings to 65 – that’s just not something people do. It would be foolish to even compare myself to that.

“In the US they only show the American players on TV, so I only saw flashes of Andy’s games at the US Open. But I’ve got used to seeing him on TV now. He is established, he’s not intruding any more; he’s not a new kid on the block. He is top 20 and part of the show.

“Everybody develops at a different rate. I am 20 and just because I am not in the top 100 in the world doesn’t mean I can’t be there in two years or five years, or even eight months. All I can do is every single day try as hard as I can to get better. In tennis especially, and in a lot of things, you can’t sit down and say ‘I will have done this in three months’. But my ambitions are just as high [as Murray’s]. When they are not, I will stop playing.”

The idea of annulling a tennis career in one’s early 20s is one that strikes the outsider as stark, but Baker’s realistic view of his future has nothing to do with the experiences of Kim Clijsters or Martina Hingis. He is not an overworked prodigy who realises he has sacrificed his youth and wants to claw back time. No, the world No 303 simply has an astute view of the viability of a sports career if you don’t quite crack the big time. “If at 23 or 24 I have not made any money, or made a living out of tennis, it wouldn’t be a good business decision to keep playing,” he said. “The money dries up.”

Thankfully, this is only a contingency plan for dire emergencies because Baker fully intends to realise his goals, and he is not alone in believing the ATP ladder is one he can climb. In selecting his first team as Davis Cup captain, John Lloyd named Baker and Josh Goodall – a higher-ranked player, but less adept on Ukrainian clay, thus overlooked for Odessa – as prototype figures as Britain try to move clear of the rel egation play-off scene.

“We have to rebuild and put in some untried younger players alongside Andy Murray. Jamie Baker and Josh Goodall look like the kind of kids who would be willing to run through a brick wall for the team and should be given a chance,” said Lloyd. “The experience could harden them into good Davis Cup performers. It could take two or three years and a few defeats for it to happen, but it would be worth it.”

Baker has only met Lloyd once, at the end of a pre- Wimbledon exhibition match against Mikhail Youzhny that he lost 6-2, 6-0. Reassuringly, the fact he failed to cause any Murrayesque upsets at Queen’s or Wimbledon – losing, in the respective first rounds, to Mardy Fish in two sets and Andreas Seppi in four – did not alter Lloyd’s belief he was ready for full international combat. Should Rusedski’s ailments keep him out of the Euro-African Zone relegation play-off, Baker will play singles.

The Scot spent most of August at the Saddlebrook resort in baking hot Florida, where he lived and breathed tennis and hit with the likes of Tommy Robredo and former French Open finalist Martin Verkerk.

“Obviously John Lloyd has heard from other players about my reputation,” Baker said. “But it’s great. I got a taste for the Davis Cup experience last year when I was a practice partner for the team when they faced Switzerland, and that gave me a huge amount of confidence.

“I was feeling down after such a big build-up to Wimbledon and then just missing out, because winning just one match at that level would have made such a difference. But I know I am a far better player than I was in Jan uary.”