No. 2 Murray narrows gap to No. 1 Djokovic in ATP rankings

Andy Murray has set his sights on overtaking Novak Djokovic as world number one after claiming the Wimbledon title.

Andy Murray chatted about parenthood with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, shortly after his Wimbledon win.

“I think after Wimbledon last time, the few months afterwards I found motivation hard and then I had my back surgery”. I don’t even remember [what I had to drink] but it was good fun. “It also has given me a little bit of extra motivation to work hard, train hard, and do all of the right things to give myself a chance to win these events”, he said. “And that was it”, he said. “I’d rather set the bar as high as possible and not quite achieve it”.

“I think a few of my team definitely woke up feeling worse than me”, Murray wrote in his BBC column. “I’m very proud with how I’ve handled that over the years”.

Murray has reached all three Grand Slam finals in 2016, losing the previous two in Australia and France to Djokovic. By 1995, Agassi had won three majors, held the No. 1 ranking and defeated rival Pete Sampras in the Australian Open final.

“If there was another tournament this weekend – unless maybe a Slam or the Olympics – there’s no way I would play”. Guys haven’t been able to give him a true big scare.

Raonic says the experience of his first grand slam final has given him greater confidence to compete for tennis’ biggest prizes in the future. I would love to get to No 1, for sure, and the way to do that is to show up every week and be focused on that tournament’. “I put so much pressure on myself, so much stress to try and win this”.

Lendl’s commitment is likely to involve being present at Murray’s December training block in Miami, which is commutable from the Czech’s Florida base. It also meant, for the first time in his career, Murray was a strong favorite to win a major final. Now Lendl was back for No. 3. “If I want to get there, I need to try to win more matches against him”.

Raonic is also in pole position to compete at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in November, having risen to No. 3 in the Emirates ATP Race to London rankings. The same goes for his guest-box demeanor as a coach. “He was telling everyone it was allergies” said Murray. “That he had hay fever”, Murray said with a chuckle.

The unseeded Watson and Kontinen, playing in their first event together, beat 15th seeds Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany and Colombian Roberto Farah 7-6 (5), 6-4 on Centre Court after Andy Murray had clinched his second men’s singles crown.

Murray headed home for some much-needed rest after his media duties and was planning a more low-key celebration on Monday night by going out for dinner with his team. Tears of joy, this time.

Howard Fendrich covers tennis for The Associated Press.