When you fall off the horse, the best thing to do is get back on it.

For Andy Murray, that means getting back to action sooner rather than later, perhaps as soon as next weekend, when Britain travel to Canada for their Davis Cup first-round tie.

Murray will doubtless be kicking himself over the next few days as his fourth-round defeat at the Australian Open, to world No.50 Mischa Zverev of Germany, begins to sink in.

There was no doubt it was a missed opportunity, but his Davis Cup captain Leon Smith believes he will get back to business quickly and regain top form.

“Once he gets his head around it and once he gets enough people reminding him he's still No.1 in the world – he's grown that gap even more this week – he can puts some distance between himself and the rest over the coming months with Indian Wells, and Miami in particular,” Smith said.

“He will be reminded enough times by those round him of what a run he's on. It's one match. It's a sore one just now, but he'll come back.”

Smith said Murray had not told him if he would be available for Canada but will almost certainly name him in the squad, which he is due to announce this evening.

The consensus among the many former players and coaches who stalk the corridors of Melbourne Park during this fortnight were united in their belief that Murray had not been aggressive enough against Zverev.

The German served and volleyed throughout and rushed Murray off his own serve, a style of play he rarely faces, but one he is usually so adept at dealing with.

His former coach, Jonas Bjorkman said Zverev deserved huge credit for his performance but was also surprised at Murray’s performance, which by his own highest standards, was not up to the standard that has taken him to the top of the rankings.

“He'd played Mischa before so he knew exactly what to expect, but you get confused when you're not ball-striking as good as normal,” Bjorkman said.

“You try to hit it to the corner and it goes all of a sudden half a metre away from that and then you start thinking.

“I think he got confused because he has the best lob in the game and for his standard, he had so many short ones, which is very rare and unusual. But those guys are human. Zverev still had to play the match of his life.”

The former Wimbledon champion Pat Cash said Murray should have come forward more himself.

“He was a bit passive, a bit negative, but it was fast yesterday,” he said. “Conditions were really quick. The balls zipped through the air really fast. So that sliced backhand that Zverev played, just pushing the ball around, was really tricky to attack.

“But time and time again Andy had the opportunity to come in and finish the point off only to see a floating forehand or backhand from Zverev drop near the baseline.”

Michael Chang, the former French Open champion now coaching Kei Nishikori, said he expected Murray to shrug off the loss quickly.

“From what I see of Andy and his work ethic…I’m sure he’s going to be pretty hungry to get going for that next tournament already,” he said.

“I think he’s probably going to look at this as just a hiccup. Unfortunate losses happen. I don’t think he’s going to get too down on it. He’ll just try to learn from it and move on.

“You can’t let this affect the rest of your year, especially when he had such a phenomenal year last year and finished it world No.1.”

Meanwhile, for the first time in 20 months, Rafael Nadal is into a quarter-final and tomorrow he'll play third seed Milos Raonic. "I will need to serve well and then try to return his serve, which is amazing," he said. Grigor Dimitrov will take on David Goffin in the other quarter-final.