REACHING the top is one thing. Staying up there is another. Sir Chris Hoy, who claimed his record sixth Olympic gold medal at the ripe old age of 36, knows all about the difficulties of fending off the procession of eager young whipper snappers who would love to steal your status as the best in the world in your chosen profession, even if peaking for a couple of high-octane laps in track cycling is light years away from the daily grind of the global tennis tour.

Andy Murray begins his ATP Tour finals campaign against Marin Cilic today, knowing Novak Djokovic - as troubled as he appeared yesterday - is desperate to re-claim the spot where he had spent 122 unbroken weeks until last Monday. The good news is that Hoy believes his friend possesses the same kind of driven personality as Roger Federer and is ready to emulate the Swiss great by staying at the top of the sport for the next four or five years. It would also seem a pretty safe bet that he will follow his fellow countryman Hoy in the knighthood stakes sooner rather than later.

"It is different in tennis because it is about ranking points," Hoy told Herald Sport. "Staying at number one for me meant winning world championships or the Olympics so that meant having to be the very best on one day, or for a week once a year. But generally it is about not taking your foot off the gas and I just don't think Andy is the type of guy to light up a cigar, pat himself on the back, and say 'job done'. I don't think anything will change with him.

"He will already be planning next season, looking ahead, trying to tick the boxes and achieve the things that he hasn't achieved yet," added Hoy, who watched the Scot's 2013 Wimbledon win from Murray's players' box. "He has an insatiable appetite for success. It is very tough staying at the top, any sportsperson will tell you that, but if Andy can stay injury free and stay out of trouble I am sure he will be on top for a long time yet.

"When you enter the late part of your career, there is a trade off between the physical elements versus the experience. Although you deny it, your ability to recover, to soak up injuries, does diminish. There are parts of your physical armoury which just generally you can see aren't getting any better, but your knowledge of yourself as a person, your knowledge of your body, and when it is starting to break down, your general maturity in dealing with situations, improves.

"Look at someone like Federer. If you have the resilience that Federer has, you just keep coming back and I think seeing him will be an inspiration for Andy to look at. I am sure Andy will be around for four years at least at the top, I am sure he will keep enjoying it and just keep wanting to continue on."

While Hoy gave up on track cycling too soon to appear in his own velodrome at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, even at the age of 40 in some ways he is speeding up rather than slowing down. After four years of preparation, the Scot recently completed the Le Mans 24-hour race, finishing a creditable 17th of the 60 cars in his class as he drove shifts with France's Andrea Pizzitola and Britain's Michael Munemann in his Nissan-powered Algarve Pro Racing Ligier LMP2 car.

For all the logistical and financial challenges it takes to make it onto the start line, the Scot is desperate to give it another go and jokes that taking the night shift with his three-year old son Callum was the perfect preparation for the sleep deprivation involved.

"It was more than I hoped it would be, really, just an incredible day," said Hoy. "It was a privilege to be part of it. You don't have to be a motorsport fan to appreciate it. It is not like F1, where it is just about celebrities and who wants to be seen on the grid. It is real fans, real enthusiasts, a little bit different to anything else I have been used to.

"It is like getting to play alongside Tiger Woods at the Open, or brought in with five minutes to play in the football World Cup final," he added. "You are at a world level event, racing shoulder to shoulder with the best in the world. As a sports fan, it was hard to stop pinching yourself and saying 'this is brilliant', and remember it is a race, where you had to get round every corner as quick as you can and make sure you don't drop a hundredth of a second here or there. I'd love to do it again but it is tricky because it is such an expensive thing to take part in and you need to have huge backing."

Having been weaned on short bursts in track cycling, this was a different discipline for Hoy. "I had never done anything as tough mentally for such a long period of time," he said. "You do get hairy moments but you never get to that point where you are nodding off, because you have so much adrenaline. You realise your brain has been on high alert, in a state of fight and flight for the last two and a half hours.

"You plan to do a big celebration after the race but you literally have two beers, then get some food in you," Hoy added. "You think you are just going to shut your eyes for half an hour then you wake up and it is the next day.

"When the danger is over and you are out the car, your brain just shuts down. The relief just washes over you. You realised how tired you have been. That is why you are so emotional at the end of it. But I have got a young son so I have been training for the last few years in sleep deprivation."