Andy Murray has credited his Wimbledon triumph in the summer for his stunning run of form, which continued with another hard-fought victory in the opening round of the Paris Masters yesterday.
Murray bounced back from losing a second-set tie-break to win his second-round match against Spain’s Fernando Verdasco 6-3, 6-7, 7-5 for what was his 53rd victory in 57 matches.
The 29-year-old Scot is now on the brink of the world No1 spot and has not looked back since winning his first Grand Slam title for three years in London back in July. “The grass-court season was really important for me, because I hadn’t won any of the major events for a long time and I had lost a lot of tough finals,” said Murray, who is aiming to become the first Briton to top the world singles rankings. He needs to at least reach the final in Paris to have any chance of achieving the feat.
He added: “The French Open this year was especially tough for me. That was frustrating. But to bounce back and win at Wimbledon gave me a lot of confidence again.”
Murray remains on course to meet current No1 Novak Djokovic in the Paris final after the Serb was a comfortable 6-3, 6-4 winner over Gilles Muller, with the Scot having reached the final of 10 of his last 11 tournaments, including winning seven of them.
But after yesterday’s tough battle, Murray must now recover quickly for his third-round clash with France’s Lucas Pouille.
Murray added: “It was obviously a tough match because he was just going for his shots and serving huge when he was behind in games.
“I just had to fight at the end and I fought hard enough to get the win.”
Pouille, 22, has been one of the players of the season, rising from 78 in the rankings to 17 but he was well beaten by Murray in Shanghai three weeks ago.
