ANDY Murray conceded last night that a Sunday shoot out with Novak Djokovic to decide who is the sport's rightful World No 1 would be the perfect finale to the tennis year.
The 29-year-old from Dunblane, who currently holds that distinction, recorded his second win of this year's ATP World Tour Finals with a gruelling 6-7 (9), 6-4, 6-4 victory against Japan's Kei Nishikori in a match, played out over three sets and three hours and 20 minutes, which was the longest ever in the history of this event.
His 21st consecutive tour win kept him on a collision course with Djokovic, who has defeated Milos Raonic and Dominic Thiem thus far to book a semi-final place, and now faces alternate David Goffin today after Gael Monfils withdrew yesterday with a rib problem.
"For the tournament and stuff, for everyone interested in tennis, that [a final against Djokovic] would probably be the perfect way to finish the year," said Murray, of what would be the first meeting between the world's top two since the French Open final in June. "But for me and I'm sure for Novak, both of our goals would just be to try to win the event. For him, whether that's by beating me, someone else, or for me if it's winning against Novak or another player, it doesn't change for us as players."
This was the third lengthy meeting between these players this year - Murray won over five hours on Davis Cup duty in Birmingham in February, but lost over four hours in the US Open quarter finals - and with "hopefully three matches left" the Scot said he was counting the days to the end of what has been an arduous season. "I'm a bit tired obviously," he said. "I was in the ice bath after the match and that obviously helps make you feel a bit better. But sort of 10, 12 hours afterwards the body starts to stiffen up. I'm sure tomorrow I'll be a bit sore. But it's positive I get a day's rest and recovery."
He paid credit to some crucial in-game adjustments for getting him the win, particularly moving his strike zone a metre closer to the baseline, but confessed there were times during the match when his failure to dominate points had driven him to distraction.
"There was nothing really in it," said the Scot. "He could have won in two sets, for sure. He had a number of chances.
"I didn't feel like I was hitting the ball as well as I would have liked," the 29-year-old added. "He was dictating so many of the points. As the match went on, I was getting frustrated, then becoming sarcastic with myself that I couldn't seem to hit the ball as clean as I wanted to. I don't often do that, but today I was definitely being more sarcastic towards myself than usual."
Murray re-iterate his anti-hunting stance in the wake of criticism of kit suppliers Under Armour for their links to the blood sport. "I mean, there's certain hunting that's okay, but some that's obviously not, that isn't ethical," said Murray. "I wouldn't support that. I do love animals and don't want them getting killed unnecessarily for fun. I don't agree with that."
It isn't just Andy who is aiming to finish the year as World No 1 in their chosen event. His brother Jamie and his partner Bruno Soares' hopes of ending the season as the world's top doubles pairing took a step forward without hitting a ball yesterday, when rivals Nicolas Mahut and Pierre Hugues Herbert of France went down 5-7, 7-5, (8-10) to Feliciano and Marc Lopez of Spain. In other tennis news, it was announced that Great Britain's first round Davis Cup tie against Canada would take place in Ottawa, rather than Vancouver as expected.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here