Andy Murray cemented his status as the number one tennis player in the world, a ranking he will carry over the holidays until the new season begins in 2017 by virtue of a rather dominant 6 – 3, 6 – 4 victory over Novak Djokovic, who could have wrested away the prestigious season-ending number one ATP ranking from Murray by a win in the London final.
Logic would have dictated that Murray would have a tough slog in the final, given the amount of work he had to do just to arrive at that stage, what with having spent many hours on the court in two of the longest matches in the history of three-set events against Kei Nishikori and Stan Wawrinka.
Murray appeared to draw energy from the presence of home supporters, well, sort of at any rate, given the problematic relationship betwixt the Scot Murray and the hosting British. Then, there are notoriously fickle tennis fans who will switch allegiance at the drop of the hat in order to see a best-of-three go the full three sets.
Be dethroning Djokovic, Murray put an end to a reign that had lasted 122 weeks. Since 2003, when Andy Roddick ascended briefly, the number one ranking has been the exclusive province of men named Djokovic, Federer or Nadal.
