The battle for year-end No. 1 in the Emirates ATP Rankings will come down to the final weekend of the season. World No. 1 Andy Murray made sure of that on Friday by dismissing third seed Stan Wawrinka 6-4, 6-2 in his final Group John McEnroe match.
“I weathered the early storm a little bit. Stan came out hitting the ball huge. He was hitting a lot of winners, a lot of aces,” said Murray. “But once I got through the early part of the match, I started to create chances in most of his service games. I served very well myself, got a lot of free points with my serve. That allowed me to also dictate a lot of the points, whereas at the beginning of the match I wasn't able to do that.”
Murray's win also set Saturday's semi-final lineup. The Scot will face Milos Raonic, who finished second in Group Ivan Lendl, at 2 pm GMT. Novak Djokovic, who won Group Ivan Lendl, will face Kei Nishikori, the second-place finisher in Group John McEnroe, at 8 pm GMT.
Murray will try to reach the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals title match for the first time when he faces Raonic, who concluded round-robin play with a 2-1 record. The Scot leads his FedEx ATP Head2Head series against Raonic 8-3 and has won their past seven match-ups. Their semi-final contest at The O2 will be their sixth meeting of 2016, with their closest three-set contest of the season coming at The Queen's Club in June. Raonic led by a set and a break but Murray came back to win in the final 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-3.
“Milos obviously serves big, goes for his shots. He moves forward when he has the chance. I think he probably likes the conditions here since it’s a little bit quicker,” said Murray. “You don't normally get loads of opportunities against the big servers. It comes down to whether or you take them when you do get those chances. When I've played him this year, I've created a few opportunities. I'll need to do the same tomorrow if I want to win.”
By improving to 3-0 in London, Murray also kept pace with World No. 2 Djokovic, who finished his group stage play a perfect 3-0 as well. On paper Murray is 205 points ahead of Djokovic, but the Scot will see the 275 points he earned in the 2015 Davis Cup final fall from his points total on 28 November, the day the year-end rankings are calculated. So, that effectively leaves Murray 130 points ahead of Djokovic at the conclusion of Friday's day session.
The Brit is trying to finish year-end No. 1 for the first time in his career. Djokovic is looking to finish No. 1 for the third consecutive year and for the fifth time overall. If Djokovic loses to Nishikori, and Murray wins, the Scot will finish as No. 1. But if Murray loses in the semi-finals and Djokovic wins, the Serbian will finish as year-end No. 1.
If both players win their semi-final contests, however, the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals title match would determine year-end No. 1, which has never happened in the history of the season finale (since 1970).
The pressure was on Murray to match Djokovic on Friday, and he handled it well, as he has the past six months. The 29 year old turned in perhaps his cleanest match of the tournament, dropping only four of his first-serve points (26/30) and erasing both break points in the 87-minute contest.
“I think he did many things good. I think he was serving really well, especially playing good after the serve. He didn't give me many chances,” Wawrinka said. “He made me hesitate a little bit with my game, when to go, when to stay back. That's why he's so good. That's why he's No. 1.”
Wawrinka looked locked in during the early exchanges. The Swiss was blasting winners from both sides. He'd finish the first set with 22 winners. But Murray withstood the barrage and earned the first break of the match at 3-all. The Scot was pushed out wide on a Wawrinka kick serve but stayed in the point and cut a backhand volley that Wawrinka sliced into the net.
Murray held on to the momentum, too, breaking Wawrinka twice to lead 3-0 in the second set. The Scot now has won 22 consecutive matches and just needs two more wins to finish the best season of his career as World No. 1.