John Peers' commute to work this week is a charter boat along the Thames from his hotel, the Savoy. The only Australian competing at this week's ATP World Tour Finals is ending a season in which he reached eight doubles finals ??? including Wimbledon and the US Open ??? with Scottish partner Jamie Murray to be ranked among the world's top 10. This, in part, is the reward.
After three years together, the pair will split after a week at the O2 Arena in which, as fourth seeds, they can yet finish the year as the world's No.1 duo. But if both will have new partners in 2015, Murray already has what Peers is missing: a place in his country's Davis Cup team. 
Despite his ranking and results, Peers is yet to be presented with the numbered Australian tracksuit he covets. Yet although the 27-year-old can walk unnoticed down most streets other than, perhaps, his parents' in suburban Glen Waverley, Melbourne's east, recognition appears to be building in other ways.
Peers has received two welcome phone calls in recent weeks: one from Tennis Australia president Steve Healy advising him of his Newcombe Medal nomination alongside the likes of Sam Stosur and Thanasi Kokkinakis at Monday's awards night; the other a let's-have-a-chat approach from new Davis Cup captain Lleyton Hewitt.
Peers admits to some disappointment about not having been given an opportunity before now, but with Sam Groth, for example, able to play both singles as doubles, it is clear there are also issues of versatility for Hewitt and his co-selectors to consider.
"As the team showed this year they had a great balance in the way they wanted to go, and I felt I was knocking on the door and very close to it," Peers said. "All I can do is keep trying to put results up, and improve as a player and a person, and hopefully I can fit into the team that they want to pick, and as Lleyton's the new captain now it's hopefully going to move forward and hopefully I'll get a chance to play next year."
Despite a fine family pedigree, Peers - whose mother, Elizabeth Little, is a former professional, and sister Sally the 2009 Wimbledon girls' doubles champion - was a relative latecomer to pro ranks, taking the US College route that has provided the once-promising cricketer with the insurance of a finance degree. If nothing else, he at least has some cash to count now, having nudged $1 million in prizemoney for the year after Sunday's round-robin win against Fabio Fognini and Simone Bolleli.
The British papers devoted substantial ink in the tournament lead-up to analysing the reasons behind the imminent separation of such a successful team. In the finest tradition of saving-face romantic separations, both insist the split is mutual, but there still must be a slightly odd feeling knowing this is the end. 
"Yes and no," says Peers, who will collaborate with Finn Henri Kontinen, while Murray teams with Bruno Soares. "We've both had a great spell together in three years and it's a lot of time together in each other's pockets, and as doubles goes there's a lot of chopping and changing all the time. We both felt it was a mutual thing that it's best way to move forward, that we've both set each other up perfectly and it was the right time to just go our separate ways and keep things fresh."
Hewitt, he says, will be a great Cup - and, by extension, Olympic - captain, as a proven winner who has driven Australian tennis for so long, and perhaps the very sensible Peers can be another wise old head helping to guide Nick Kyrgios and Bernard Tomic, too.
"Hopefully, but I mean the guys are starting to put some great results on the court and I think they're both starting to grow up a little bit as well," he said. "They've proven that they've got the talent to perform weekly at the top level and it's great for Australian tennis from the standpoint that we've got to actually start to get some depth and get some top singles guys pushing up there as well."
For now, though, it is Peers as the lone Australian standard-bearer in London, playing cricket on that private boat down the Thames, enjoying life at the pointy end of tennis. "It feels good. You've always got to try and fly the flag as best you can, and as Lleyton's done in the past he flew it by himself," he said. "Hopefully a few other guys can join me. We're all trying to push harder together and get the numbers back up in the sport, because we have been a dominant country in the past. So there's no reason we can't be and I think we've got a great group of guys to be able to do that now."