Johannesburg [South Africa]: World number one Andy Murray has insisted that he will try his absolute best to dethrone his long-time rival Novak Djokovic as the world’s best tennis player in the remaining three events of the year.
“It’s not about one event, it’s about a total season of 17, 18 tournaments and whoever performs best over them will get there and right now that’s obviously Novak but I’ll try my best to finish as strong as I can,” Murray was quoted as saying by Sport24.
The top-ranked Serbian is currently maintaining a comfortable lead of 2,415 points, but British maestro Murray has a great chance to surge into the top before the ATP World Tour Finals in London next month.
Murray, who has already assured his place at the season-ending Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, could gain further 500 ranking points by winning this week’s Erste Bank Open in Vienna. Djokovic is not competing in that tournament.
Murray said that Djokovic played extremely well in indoor hardcourt while he had struggled a bit, adding that he needs to work on his shortcoming to get close to the Serbian.
“Novak’s still got a pretty big lead in terms of points and he plays extremely well on the indoor hardcourts and has played in London whereas I’ve struggled a little bit so I’ve got to make some improvements this year if I want to get close to doing that,” Murray insisted.
Murray, however, believes he had been consistence from last few months and is looking forward to continue the same in the rest of the season.
“If you talk about getting to number one, it’s not about individual tournaments, it’s about a 12-month period and obviously you want to be consistent and get to the latter stages of as many tournaments as possible, which I’ve done the last few months and obviously I will try and do over the next few events if it’s possible,” stressed Murray.
Despite three grand slam titles, Murray has never been a world number one.He has picked a total of six titles this year, including clinching victories at Wimbledon and Rio Olympics.
Murray will kick start his challenge in Vienna against Martin Klizan on Wednesday.(ANI)