Murray beats Wawrinka to reach semifinals

Nishikori adopted an aggressive, attacking guise from the outset which while it was enough to take the opening set would eventually prove to be his undoing as he crashed to a 3-6 6-2 6-3 loss.

Now the Davis Cup is run throughout the year with the World Group first round immediately after the Australian Open, the quarter-finals on the back of Wimbledon and the semi-finals hot on the heels of the U.S. Open.

The Scot beat Wawrinka, Nishikori and Marin Cilic to get this far and knows he must match or better Djokovic’s result at this event to remain in that all important top ranking spot.

Despite Murray’s win at Wimbledon, Raonic did put up a fight against the British superstar.

Djokovic, who is chasing the year-end No. 1 ranking this week at the season-ending tournament, praised the system at the ATP finals, where players can lose a match in the first round and still advance to the semifinals.

“I was mentioning my goal is to win a Grand Slam”. But the Nishikori we’ve seen this week, the one who steamrolled Wawrinka and stretched Murray to the point of physical breakdown, looks like an appreciably different specimen.

Wawrinka, who faces a battle to hold onto the world number three ranking, said: ‘All I know is, if I want to have a chance to qualify, I need to win.

“He moves the ball around extremely well, better than anyone maybe”. I wasn’t able to dictate numerous points, it felt. In the second set, I’d already qualified. Andy’s a tough player. I played much better today than I did a couple of days ago.

In an earlier match played on the day, Novak Djokovic trying to reclaim the No.1 position from Andy Murray was ruthless in his 6-1, 6-2 demolition of Belgium’s David Goffin at the O2 Arena here.

“I played really consistent, with good energy”. They also went five sets and nearly five hours in the Davis Cup in March.

Nishikori began the match like a rocket and his energy saw him secure an early break, which was sufficient to take the opening set 6-3.

Wawrinka possesses the firepower to blast anyone off the court but his defence is not up to Murray’s level and the unforced errors started to flow – 26 for the Swiss in total over one hour, 26 minutes. Nishikori tied it at 4-4.

He narrowly lost to Djokovic, with the Serb winning two narrow tiebreaks, while beating both Gael Monfils and Dominic Thiem in straight sets.

“It’s a big match obviously”, said Murray on Friday “He probably likes the conditions here, a little bit quicker”.

Murray thumped Wawrinka in the French Open in June and leads 9-7 in their head-to-head record, but he knows how unsafe the world No3 can be when he’s in the mood. Like the Greenwich Meridian which bisects the O2 arena, Murray’s 21st consecutive singles win, a gruelling 3hr 20min war of attrition against Kei Nishikori, could have gone either way.

Goffin admitted he had found the situation hard, saying: “Yesterday I was feeling a little bit on holiday, and all of a sudden somebody tells you, “you have to play in front of 15,000 people against Novak”.

Wawrinka saved one set point in the first set, and dominated the tiebreaker.