No player has ever won three Masters Series titles in a row but, though gambling and tennis make uneasy bedfellows, it might be worth putting a few pounds on Andy Murray becoming the first to do it.

No player has ever won three Masters Series titles in a row but, though gambling and tennis make uneasy bedfellows, it might be worth putting a few pounds on Andy Murray becoming the first to do it.

Murray won his fifth trophy of what has already been an astoundingly successful season yesterday by defending his St Petersburg Open title and will head into this week's Paris Masters on an 11-match unbeaten streak and having won 25 of the 28 matches he has played since Wimbledon.

The Scot used his home grand slam as something of a springboard and reached the semi-finals of his next tournament, the Canadian Masters, before finding a patch of form which has brought him the Cincinnati and Madrid Masters titles as well as a runner-up plate from the US Open, where he lost to Roger Federer.

The trophy he won yesterday, by destroying Andrey Golubev, the Kazakhstan qualifier, 6-1, 6-1 in just 56 minutes in St Petersburg, was not quite in the same league as the victories which preceded it but it was another illustration of how dangerous Murray's form is at the moment.

By defending his title without either dropping a set - he lost just 28 games in five matches - or showing the slightest sign of the fatigue which afflicts most players at the tale-end of the season, Murray continued to prove that he is currently enjoying the sort of surge in form that all professional athletes must dream about. "I have had the best year of my life," said Murray, who is the first British man since Mark Cox in 1975 win consecutive titles. "I've been lucky enough to hit a real winning streak and it is the first time I have ever won back-to-back titles. I hope it continues.

"The games were not particularly long and that has helped me. I go into every match hoping and aiming to win but if I am fortunate not to have to play many games or the games don't last very long then it helps my stamina and energy levels.

"When you win matches like this it keeps you very motivated, especially when I can win without playing many games. That keeps me fresher mentally and physically than the other players. I don't feel unbeatable but I do feel very motivated and confident going into my matches. My preparations have been right, I've got the right people around me and I can relax off the court and focus when I am on it."

More stamina will be required in Paris, a tournament of sufficient stature that Murray will not want it to be the place where his winning streak is brought to an end. He plays well indoors - he made the quarter-finals there 12 months ago before losing to Richard Gasquet - and enjoys the lively atmosphere that the Palais de Omnisports Bercy always provides.

Murray is all but certain of ending the year as world No.4 but he knows that he has every chance of catching Novak Djokovic at No.3 early in the New Year. Largely because Djokovic has ranking points to defend in January from winning the Australian Open while Murray went out in the first round at Melbourne Park and can therefore make significant gains. To that end, this week is a chance to bank more ranking points and keep himself in prime shape for his season finale, the Masters Cup in Shanghai, where he will join the other top seven players of 2008 in a multi-million dollar play-off.

Doing well against his peers in Masters Series events and particularly the Masters Cup are important markers for Murray to lay down, especially as his recent level of play and rate of achievement will not have gone unnoticed by those who may stand between him and his last major goal: winning a grand slam tournament.

Federer is undoubtedly one of those rivals and yesterday did a little winning of his own by taking another trophy at his home tournament, the Davidoff Swiss Indoors in Basel, where he beat David Nalbandian 6-3, 6-4. Federer often finishes seasons strongly, largely because he knows that a run at this time of year is a show of strength and stamina that can also be the ideal foundation for what comes next.

When the Swiss won his first grand slam title at Wimbledon in 2003, he did so on the back of qualifying for the Masters Cup for the first time at the end of 2002 and acquitting himself well enough to engender the self-belief which later served him so well at SW19. Time will tell whether Murray is following the same path but the signs are certainly promising, since the Scot has a history of making steady incremental progress and is also one to analyse and learn from every success and failure.

By that measure, yesterday might just have been another step towards a far bigger prize.