ATP World Tour finals | Murray cruises to victory over Marin Cilic in his first game
World No.1 Andy Murray defeated World No.7 Marin Cilic 6-3, 6-2 at the O2 arena to kick start his ATP World Tour finals on a perfect note. In another John McEnroe group match, Kei Nishikori exacted revenge for his US Open loss to Stan Wawrinka by winning the match 6-2, 6-3.
Murray, who was playing his first home match after attaining the No.1 crown in the ATP Rankings for the first time, lived up to the expectations of the fans by putting up another splendid performance. Despite misfiring from both the baselines at the start, Murray took control over the proceedings soon by converting four of his five break points in the first set.
After winning the first set 6-3, Murray fired on all cylinders to win the second set and eventually the game.
Elated after winning the game in front of the home crowd, Murray said, "It was obviously nice to play in that stadium with the crowd like that. It obviously helps. After a long, kind of, few months, it's nice to know that I'm going to be finishing the year playing in that sort of atmosphere."
On being asked about the feeling of playing the first match as the No.1 player in the world, the Scot said, "The last few days, I haven't thought about it too much. It didn't change much for me."
Earlier, on Day 2, US Open Champion Stan Wawrinka went down to World No.5 Kei Nishikori 6-2, 6-3. Nishikori broke Wawrinka twice in each set and didn’t allow a single break point on his serve.
Both of them started the game very well, but Nishikori took advantage of some sloppy play from the Swiss to earn two break points. Wawrinka’s unforced error gave Nishikori a chance to gain the upper hand with the match ending 6-2, 6-3 in favour of the Japanese.
With this victory, Nishikori
Nishikori said in the post-match press conference, "I'm not thinking too much about rankings, but would be nice if I could finish 4 or 3. I see good chance to be there if I can play good this week."
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