Andy Murray will play his first competitive match in his home country since becoming the US Open champion when he faces Tomas Berdych at the ATP World Tour Finals on Monday. This will be the opening round-robin singles match of the season-ending championships at London's O2 Arena. Novak Djokovic, back at world number one, plays Jo-Wilfried Tsonga later in the day.
Murray surely expects some support from the 17,000 spectators when he takes to the court. "I'll have to wait and see what it's like when it does happen but obviously it will be nice," he said. "I'm sure all the players will say it's one of the nicest arenas to play in, the atmosphere's great and it's packed from the beginning - from the first point of the matches right through to the end, which isn't always the case."
Roger Federer, David Ferrer, Juan Martin del Potro and Janko Tipsarevic have been drawn in Group B, which begins on Tuesday, with the top two players from each group progressing to Sunday's semi-finals. Andy Murray has a losing record against Berdych, the Czech having won four of their previous seven matches, but the Murray prevailed over four sets in the US Open semi-finals in September.
"It's probably one of the hardest matches to start," said Berdych. "It's kind of revenge for the US Open but it's another match. Of course the crowd's going to be on his side, but what I like about this crowd is that they're one of the best tennis crowds I ever played in front of, so I think it's going to be just fine."
Murray has never made it past the semi-finals in London but he is expected to do better this time after breaking his Grand Slam duck and winning the Olympic gold. "There's always pressure at all of the major tournaments," Murray said. "I feel a little bit more relaxed coming in this year than I have done in previous years because I managed to win the US Open, but there's going to be pressure on me here to play well. The only thing I can guarantee is that I'll give 110% on the court, fight as hard as I can to the end of all of the matches and see where that gets me. Hopefully it will get me a few wins."
Six-time season-ending champion Federer admitted Djokovic and Murray are the form players at the very top of the game right now. "It motivates me, it doesn't annoy me," said the Swiss, "because they deserve the limelight as well. It's great that we have a lot of champions out there right now playing the game. I was very happy for Andy that he made his move at the Olympics and also at the US Open. It was always going to be natural that he was going to get more limelight, and Djokovic after his incredible year last year was always going to have the limelight on his as well. Right now it seems like they're in their prime and this is when they are supposed to play their best tennis."
Novak Djokovic is the favourite to win the tournament at Bet365, being priced at 2/1, while Murray is priced at 9/4.
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