Murray remains world No 1 after beating Djokovic at the O2

It was Britain’s #Andy Murray that came out on top, overcoming #Novak Djokovic 6-3 6-4 to win his first season-ending title. However, he ran into a major roadblock in the form of Andy Murray, who has been in imperious form since winning his third Grand Slam and second Wimbledon title this year. In the process he ended Djokovic’s four-year reign at the tournament.

There were many tennis fans, little more than a month ago, who feared that the end-of-season finale at the O2 this year could not live up to expectations. “We’ve played in Grand Slam finals, Olympics and matches like this – it’s been a tough rivalry”.

“I’ve beat three guys in the top five in the world, which some people were not happy that I hadn’t won against the top-five players”, Murray said of a productive week in London.

The Briton produced a scintillating performance on Sunday, befitting of the best player in the world, to triumph 6-3 6-4 and delight the majority of the spectators packed into a sold-out O2 Arena in London.

“It was a big, big match against someone that would be my main rival really throughout my career”.

“No party tonight”, said Murray. But this one was more important for me because obviously it’s a match-up that over the last couple of years I lost a lot of the big matches against him.

On Sunday, an entire season of tennis boils down to one three-set match with the No. 1 ranking on the line.

“I gave myself some chances there”.

Murray also thanked his team, saying: “I couldn’t do it without them”. Thankfully I managed to win today.

“I was really exhausted today and didn’t feel great when I got up this morning”, added Murray. He will close out 2016 at No. 2, a ranking that is by no means one to scoff at. Murray won the first match point, but Djokovic saved it. Murray won the second match point and closed the match. “This is not the finish that I wanted, but still I think it was a good year”. “When I go away in December to train, I’m training with the Australian Open in mind”.

The pair are now likely to battle for the No 1 spot in the opening months of the new campaign, but Djokovic insisted he was not yet planning for 2017 – and said Murray should not have to either.

Djokovic earned only 11 winners in the match, compared to Raonic’s 42, but it was still enough to advance and keep him on track to win a record-tying sixth title at the year-end championship.

“I’ll probably feel like crap for the next few days but at least mentally I’ll be proud of the way things finished”. Although Djokovic was broken a total of six times during the match today, credit must be given to the player for staving off the remaining three from what seemed like the brink of loss. The end of the match was exciting and dramatic. The former No. 1 did, however, look to scrape back with a double break back against Murray in the second set, but as he admitted later in the post-match presentation, “it was a little too late”.