Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic have lived with stress all their professional sporting lives but rarely has their conjoined narrative headed for such a crescendo as in London this weekend, when their struggle for the world No1 ranking will be resolved at last.
Murray, who had the lead coming into the ATP World Tour Finals and has been leapfrogged by Djokovic as they work their way through their separate groups towards the weekend semi-finals, at least has the distraction of another happy family event to ease the tension. His father, Willie, is getting married.
“I am going to be at home [after the final on Sunday] because my dad is getting married two weeks after we finish here. He has got the stag do next weekend,” Murray said. “I have got that to look forward to. It is up in Scotland.”
And his mother, Judy, is working on her first book, due for publication next summer. As far as we know, there are no other surprises lurking, although talk of a new year’s knighthood for Murray at the end of his most impressive season is not altogether fanciful.
Meanwhile, Murray has a job to finish. As does Djokovic, who again has the menacing look of a champion about him as he aims for his fifth title in a row at the O2 Arena, and sixth overall.
He and Murray are like a pair of old prizefighters doing their best not to catch each other’s eye ahead of one more title fight, but neither can avoid the inevitable for much longer here on the banks of the Thames, appropriately a few miles down river from the old bear pit that once was Shakespeare’s stamping ground.
Those were bloody times. These are way more civilised but they are charged nonetheless. All week, the two men have gone about their business, trying to play down the significance of who will finish the year No1 in the world. They care, all right. Desperately.
Djokovic wound up his round-robin commitments on Thursday with a perfunctory two-set dismissal of the late substitute David Goffin, while Murray practised in anticipation of his third match in the other group, against the up-and-down Stan Wawrinka on Friday afternoon. He knows – as does his conqueror in 24 of 34 previous encounters – that if Djokovic wins his remaining two matches, he reclaims his No1 ranking.
Speaking about Wawrinka, Murray said: “He is always dangerous. Once he gets through the first couple of rounds of tournaments, his record when he gets deep in tournaments is really good. Some times early in tournaments it takes him a while to find his range but, once he does, he isn’t easy to stop. I expect him to play better on Friday than maybe he did in his first match.”
Murray’s stamina has stood up remarkably well, after 22 wins and four titles on the spin. But he does not regard this as his most difficult run-in to the end of a season. “The toughest year for me was the one where I had my back surgery [2013],” he said. “I found that really tough, really tiring, stressful. Although I was having success on the court, I was in pain all the time. I could play with it, but it was just really, really sore. After 18 months of being in pain I didn’t want to do that any more.
“The last few months my body has become used to playing a lot of matches. I will definitely need to take a break at the end of the season. But now, while my back is occasionally sore and a little bit stiff, it isn’t like it was before. I trust my body a lot. I put a lot of work into it. When I take a break, I will need to build that back up again. Right now, playing matches, it doesn’t feel too bad.”
