Murray Displaces Djokovic to Retain World No.1

Murray and Soares reached the semi-finals of the season-ending tour finals after winning all three of their group matches, but have surged to the top of the rankings before resuming their campaign.

“I mean, we got off to a great start”.

Murray admitted it was hard going on court after sitting through the conclusion to his brother’s nail-biting match.

“I had how many days, eight days, before my first match to really see where I was at”.

When he beat Djokovic to win Wimbledon in 2013, Murray had to come through a tortuous 14-minute final game, and there was more tension this time. Murray and Soares needed to win a set only to guarantee their progress. This tournament has been a family affair for the Murrays this week, and it could still be fated to reach the flawless conclusion if Andy can out perform Djokovic. “So I have a chance”.

The odds had seemed stacked against Murray given how hard he had to work to get to the final, but in winning his 78th match of the year – which is 13 more than Djokovic, the season’s second most successful player, has won – the Scot barely flinched. Jamie would also have a pretty good shot of returning to his April position as the world’s top individual doubles exponent were it not for the fact that Soares played a couple of tournaments during the year that he didn’t.

The Serbian was a shadow of his peak self, making error after error and forcing Murray only to play solidly, which he certainly did. He was rewarded for his aggression with a forehand into the corner that Djokovic could only scramble back into the net. We both came into the partnership not having won a Grand Slam, both being in finals before. I’d just been through so much emotion in the first six months with Roland Garros.

“The first set was tight, there weren’t really many chances either way, I just managed to get the break a bit later in the set”, said the three-time Grand Slam victor.

Murray took over the top spot on November 7 after winning his eighth title of the season at the Paris Masters.

On Sunday, he capped a long stretch of playing some of the best tennis of his life, and the best tennis in the world.

Murray said: “It’s a great achievement for them both”.

To add to your surprise, Murray was trailing the Djoker by a massive margin of 8000 points in the ATP rankings in June. Sixteen years ago, Gustavo Kuerten beat Andre Agassi to give the Brazilian the top ranking ahead of Marat Safin.