Andy Murray believes his game is only getting better as he continued his strong finish to the season by winning a third Shanghai Masters title of his career.
The two-time Wimbledon champion beat Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut – making his first appearance in a Masters series final – 7-6 6-1, to win his sixth tournament of the year.
Murray has now won ten consecutive matches, after winning the China Open last weekend, without dropping a set.
The Scot let three set points slip when serving at 5-4 in the opener, but hit back to take the tie-break 7-1 before racing through the second set to win in just 97 minutes.
Murray now has 41 tournament wins in his career, and put his recent run of good form down to improvements in his game.
“I’ve been moving forward a lot better, I’ve been finishing a few more points up at the net, changing the direction of the ball a little better and moving in behind those shots,” he said.
“I’ve also been coming up with some bigger serves than I was in the early part of the year, when I needed them.
“To get three aces, three free points, in the 6-5 game, after just being broken, is very important.
“I hit some big serves in the tie break as well, to get myself the first set.
“They’re a very important part of the game, the serves, they’re the most important shot.
“The return has always been the strongest part of my game, so if I serve well and give myself a lot of chances in matches, then hopefully I can keep that going.”
The 29-year-old is now just 915 points behind Novak Djokovic in the 2016 rankings, and with the Serb not playing in Austria in two weeks time, Murray has the chance to further close in on the number one ranking.
But he insists he is not thinking about that, instead saying he has a better chance of taking the top spot next spring.
“That many points doesn’t sound loads because you can get 1,000 points winning a Masters series,” he added. “But that is assuming Novak doesn’t win any matches, which he will, because he’s the best player in the world.
“If he gets a little but fresher he always finishes the year strong in the indoor events in Paris and the O2 [ATP World Tour Finals] – I don’t think he’s lost an indoor match for a very long time – it’s going to be very difficult to do it this year.
“But I think there’s an opportunity, maybe, in the early part of next year. I didn’t play through February this year because of the baby coming.
“And then I didn’t play well in Indian Wells and Miami, so that’s really the time of year when I don’t have many points to defend and a better chance to do it.” Elsewhere in the tennis world two-time Olympian Heather Watson, playing with Naomi Broady, lost in the women's doubles final at the Hong Kong Open. The British duo went down 6-3 6-1 to Chinese Taipei's Yung-Jan Chan and Hao-Ching Chan.
Sportsbeat 2016