Murray Tops Wawrinka At ATP Finals To Qualify For SFs And Keep No. 1 Hopes Alive

Andy Murray put on a solid show Friday at the ATP Finals beating Stan Wawrinka 6-4, 6-2 to reach the semifinal stage of the year-end event for a fourth time in eight tries.

In a rematch of their round-robin a year ago which went the Swiss, Stan opened play bludgeoning the ball, crushing winners from all corners and looking awfully good. But he couldn’t make any real dents to the Murray defense. And in the 3-all game Wawrinka finally cracked, giving Murray the break and that was the end of the match as the Scot reeled off five straight games before a frustrated Wawrinka got back on the board.

“I weathered the early storm a little bit. Stan came out hitting the ball huge. He was hitting a lot of winners, a lot of aces,” said Murray. “But once I got through the early part of the match, I started to create chances in most of his service games. I served very well myself, got a lot of free points with my serve. That allowed me to also dictate a lot of the points, whereas at the beginning of the match I wasn’t able to do that.”

Murray did just that, weathered the storm with his exceptional defense. He also served exception well, kept getting balls back, forcing Wawrinka to go for more and more. It was a complete match from Murray and an impressive win following that epic battle with Kei Nishikori on Wednesday.

Stan ends the season with another mixed week. It’s puzzling how he does so much better in Grand Slams than other events. He must be frustrated not to have that week-in, week-out consistency like a Murray.

“I think he did many things good. I think he was serving really well, especially playing good after the serve. He didn’t give me many chances,” Wawrinka said. “He made me hesitate a little bit with my game, when to go, when to stay back. That’s why he’s so good. That’s why he’s No. 1.”

Murray also stayed alive in the No. 1 chase and the victory actually puts him in the lead going into the weekend – Djokovic has to go a round further to finish No. 1. Now he has Milos Raonic who he leads 8-3 taking the last seven.

Murray’s victory rendered the second match as Wawrinka’s elimination locked up a semifinal berth for Nishikori even before he took the court against Marin Cilic. Nishikori, though, needs all the points he can get to track down Raonic for the year-end No. 3, or so I thought. After thumping the Croat in the first set, Nishikori faced and Cilic grabbed the momentum, deny Nishikori once again to win 3-6, 6-2, 6-3.

With the No. 3 ranking a longshot now, he’ll have the assignment of beating Novak Djokovic who he has lost to at the ATP Finals the last two years.

After an 0-5 start to his ATP Finals career, Cilic finishes on a high note registering his first win as he heads to the Davis Cup finals next week.