LONDON, (Reuters) – Andy Murray faces an anxious few hours to see if he has sealed a semi-final spot in the ATP World Tour Finals after overcoming Fernando Verdasco 6-4 6-7 7-6 in his final round-robin match yesterday.
The Briton would have secured a spot in the last four if he had tamed Verdasco in straight sets but must now await the result of yesterday’s second match between world number one Roger Federer and U.S. Open champion Juan Martin del Potro.
If the Swiss topples the towering Argentine, Murray will extend his stay at the O2 Arena but if Del Potro wins the evening showdown, calculators will be needed to work out which two players progress to the semis from Group A.
Murray, seeking a seventh title of the season, was fortunate to gain the only break of the contest at 4-4 in the first set.
Verdasco, employing an attacking strategy on break point down, looked poised to hit an easy volley winner but could only look on in horror as the ball hit the tape, leaving a chorus of 17,500 “oohhhhs” to reverberate around the arena.
Despite holding the upper hand for almost two hours, Murray looked anything but pleased with his shot selections as he berated himself, his wrist, his racket, the ball and the chair following the end of one uneventful game.
The Spaniard then riled the fourth seed further as he gatecrashed the British party by stealing the second set 7-4 in the tiebreak, thanks to a double fault from the misfiring Murray.
Verdasco, no stranger to marathon battles as he proved during his five-hour semi-final against compatriot Rafael Nadal at the Australian Open, fought valiantly in the third set but in the end paid the price for leaking 64 unforced errors.
As the clock struck the three-hour mark, he hit a tired forehand into the tramlines to hand Murray the tiebreak 7-3 and a victory that brought an almighty roar of relief from the home crowd.
Verdasco’s defeat ended a miserable outing for Spain at the tournament. The country was the only nation to field two representatives in the elite eight-man line-up but both Verdasco and Nadal, who was in Group B, failed to win any of their matches.