Andy Murray has emerged as the world’s highest ranked tennis player for the very first time following his Paris Masters triumph on Sunday, 6th of November.
Murray, who at one point during the year was approximately 8,000 points adrift of Novak Djokovic in the race for that coveted world number 1 spot, knew he had to make the final of the Paris Masters event, whilst hoping Djokovic would fail to do so himself.
When Djokovic fell to an unlikely defeat for the first time at the hands of Croatian Marin Cilic in the quarter finals, Murray knew he needed to defeat the big-serving Canadian Milos Raonic in the semi-finals to claim the coveted honour of being world number 1.
Murray takes to the court following Milos Raonic’s withdrawal
However, the Canadian was forced to pull out of his encounter with the Scotsman due to injury which meant that Andy Murray became the only British player to climb to the top of the rankings.
In his press conference, Murray couldn’t quite take in his achievement; “It feels a little bit strange how it’s happened today and obviously unfortunate that Milos is injured. To get to this stage is about 12 months of tournaments. The last few months have been the best of my career and I’m very proud to get to this point”.
As things stood, Murray still had a final to play. Win or lose, he was guaranteed to remain as the world’s best – yet this is a man who had won Wimbledon and Olympic gold this year – so winning is in his DNA and so it proved as he fought his way to a hard-fought 6-3 6-7 6-4 victory over the towering American, John Isner.
The new world number 1 celebrates his Paris Masters victory
Despite the achievement, Murray remains a mere 405 points in front of long-lasting former world number 1 Novak Djokovic. Murray will have to better Djokovic’s performance at the year ending ATP World Tour Finals in London to remain as Tennis’ best male player.
Ger Ball