Venue: O2, London Dates: 15-22 Nov Sessions: 14:00 and 20:00 GMT
Andy Murray started his ATP World Tour Finals crusade with a persuading win over Spain’s David Ferrer in London.
The Briton, 28, won 6-4 6-4 at the O2 Arena and will next play Rafael Nadal, who dismissed Stan Wawrinka 6-3 6-2 in the day’s second round-robin match.
Another triumph on Wednesday would guarantee Murray closes the year as world number two surprisingly.
The Scot’s season will proceed one week from now as Great Britain tackle Belgium in the Davis Cup final.
“It was a tough match with a lot of long rallies,” said Murray. “He fought hard right to the end and made it extremely difficult.
“He didn’t serve as well as he can and I played a bit better at the end of both sets, and that got me the win.”
After some instability about whether Murray would give up his place in London to stay solid for the masterpiece in Belgium on 27-29 November, the Scot was in a dedicated state of mind once he ventured out into the O2 Arena for his first round-robin match.
He spent a few days a week ago honing on mud for Britain’s first Davis Cup last following 1978, yet there was a minimal indication of corrosion on the change back to an indoor hard court.
Four break focuses snuck past in the initial eight recreations before Murray at long last got through, because of a fine volley and a Ferrer twofold blame.
The seventh seed, 33, was failing, making only 47% of first serves, and he was appreciative for a free Murray administration amusement toward the begin of the second set.
Ferrer was soon doing combating to keep Murray under control at the end of the day, nonetheless, succumbing in amusement six as the Scot leveled.
Serving to stay in the match, an eighth twofold blame saw Ferrer go 0-30 down. At that point gave a first match point a bobbing Murray jumped to secure a raving success at the second endeavor.
The triumph gives him an early lead in Group Ilie Nastase, with two players to meet all requirements for the semi-finals on Saturday.
Former British number one Tim Henman: “A straight-sets win against the world number seven is very good, but to compete against the best players there are too many peaks and troughs in his intensity and level of play.
“When he starts talking to his box, he’s not focused on the next point and then he’s giving the opponent the chance to be the proactive one dictating play.”
Sports tennis commentator Andrew Castle: “Apart from one lapse of concentration that lasted 10 or 15 minutes that was a very impressive performance from Andy Murray. There weren’t any real dramas, but he had to focus hard in the second set to get the job done.”
Late history favored Wawrinka over Nadal, with the Swiss winning three of their previous four matches and supplanting the Spaniard as French Open champion in June, yet his structure and state of mind fell away drastically on Monday evening.
Wawrinka, seeded fourth, made the ideal begin with a break of serve to cherish however gave the activity straight back in a comparable manner, and looked progressively baffled as the night wore on.
He let go a forehand long to drop serve again in an extensive eighth amusement and after Nadal had wrapped up the set, Wawrinka clung on through six break focuses toward the begin of the second.
It didn’t flag a hardening of his purpose however, a twofold blame giving over the break in diversion three and Wawrinka took out his dissatisfaction on the umpire at the changeover.
Fifth seed Nadal has demonstrated empowering structure as of late and, with his forehand demonstrating its commonplace gnaw off the moderate surface, he reeled off nine of the last 11 diversions to secure the triumph.
“Last year was tough,” said Nadal, who missed the 2014 tournament following appendicitis. “I’m very happy to start like this, that’s important for my confidence. The last couple of weeks I’ve been playing well.”
Wawrinka said: “It was just a really bad day at the office. When something went wrong today, everything went wrong. Just everything went the wrong way. Simple.”
