adminANDY MURRAY began his ATP World Tour Finals campaign with a convincing 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 brushed aside Stan Wawrinka 6-3 6-2 in the day’s second round-robin match.
Another victory on Wednesday would ensure Murray ends the year as world number two for the first time.
The Scot’s season will continue next week as Great Britain take on 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.”
Recent history favoured Wawrinka over Nadal, with the Swiss winning three of their past four matches and replacing the Spaniard as French Open champion in June, but his form and mood fell away dramatically on Monday evening.
Wawrinka, seeded fourth, made the perfect start with a break of serve to love but handed the initiative straight back in similar fashion, and looked increasingly frustrated as the evening wore on.
He fired a forehand long to drop serve again in a lengthy eighth game and, after Nadal had wrapped up the set, Wawrinka clung on through six break points at the start of the second.
It did not signal a stiffening of his resolve though, a double fault handing over the break in game three and Wawrinka took out his frustration on the umpire at the changeover.
Fifth seed Nadal has shown encouraging form in recent months and, with his forehand showing its familiar bite off the slow surface, he reeled off nine of the last 11 games to clinch victory.
“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.” — BBC Sport
Online Reporter