Andy Murray looks to No 1 spot confident he's back to best

As Andy Murray is the first to point out, the old clichés are the best and the oldest cliché in tennis is that the rankings never lie.
Andy Murray during his victory over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the final of the Erste Bank Open in Vienna, Picture: Ronald Zak/APAndy Murray during his victory over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the final of the Erste Bank Open in Vienna, Picture: Ronald Zak/AP
Andy Murray during his victory over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the final of the Erste Bank Open in Vienna, Picture: Ronald Zak/AP

As things stand today, Murray deserves to be the world No 2 and Novak Djokovic deserves to be the world 
No 1. But, as Murray knows only too well, that may all change this week.

As he prepares for his opening match against Fernando Verdasco at the BNP Paribas Masters in Paris, the Scot could be just five matches away from usurping Djokovic as king of the hill. He needs to get to the final to do it and if he gets there and loses, he needs Djokovic to lose in the quarter-finals or earlier to claim the top ranking spot. If he wins the title, he can allow Djokovic to get to the semi-finals – but no further. He must finish 416 ranking points or more ahead of the Serb this week if he is to become the world No 1.

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But all of that is for the number crunchers and the geeks. All Murray is thinking about is continuing his winning run – he just wants to finish this year as strongly as he can and the ranking can take care of itself.

But what gives him the greatest satisfaction is that finally he is back to where he was three years ago when he first made his breakthrough and started winning the major titles. It was back in 2012 and from the moment he won Olympic gold in London to the sunny afternoon when he won Wimbledon the following year (taking in the US Open title along the way), he looked like the man who was going to be the next serial grand slam champion. But then he had to have surgery to an ailing back and he was left in Djokovic’s wake.

The comeback was long and it was frustrating but now, as he comes towards the end of the most consistent and successful season of his career, he at last feels like he is ready and able to take on the best at the biggest events and beat them on a regular basis. Murray is in his pomp again and the confidence is plain to see.

“I think my breakthrough year was really the year that I won the Olympics and the US Open,” he said. “For me anyway that was how it felt. I’d never won any major competitions before.

“Then, in 2013, I won Wimbledon, but then I had this surgery on my back. I was in the middle of the best period of my career. I had won two Grand Slams and the Olympic gold medal in the space of 10 months and then I had the surgery on my back. It set me back a lot. And Novak improved.

“He’s had some of the best years in tennis history in that time. And obviously Roger and Rafa were still playing very well and I wasn’t able to get back to the level that I wanted to be quick enough. It’s taken me quite a long time.

“Then winning Wimbledon this year again was a big boost for me. To win one of the major competitions after a long time was important and I now feel like I’m back to where I was three years ago, since my surgery. It took me a really long time and a lot of hard work and I went through quite a lot of ups and downs but finally managed to get back there.”

And, as Murray has moved into his prime, so Djokovic has struggled. At the end of the French Open, when Djokovic completed the non-calendar year Grand Slam, he was 8,035 ranking points ahead of the Scot. But since then, Djokovic has played just 19 matches at five events while Murray has played 44 matches at eight tournaments and tacked on the Davis Cup tie against Argentina. He has won six of his seven 2016 titles in that five months and chipped away at that huge gap in the rankings.

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“It’s not an obsession [getting to No 1],” Murray added. “It’s something I would like to do and I’m trying to work towards that. I think with the consistency I’ve had over the last five or six months I’ve seen that with that I have a chance to get there, but I need to do it for like three or four more months. At the start of the year I didn’t play in February and then in March I only won two matches between the Australian Open and going to Monte Carlo, so I still have to maintain this 
level for a few more months if I want to have a chance of 
getting there. I’ll try my best to do that.”