Murray time! Federer, Nadal or Djokovic won't finish No. 1 for first time in 13 years
For the first time in the history of tennis, two players met in the final match of the season to determine who would finish the year No. 1. And in a surprisingly easy championship match in London, Andy Murray continued the momentum that catapulted him to the top of the rankings earlier this month to fend off a final-day challenge from Novak Djokovic, winning 6-3, 6-4 to win the ATP World Tour Finals and finish 2016 at the summit of his sport.
It's a stunning end to a season that started with Djokovic making history by capping his career Grand Slam and, at the same time, winning the first two legs of the Grand Slam, a feat that'd been accomplished by just two other men in the Open era. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Djokovic went into a tennis meltdown, getting upset in the third round of Wimbledon and the first round of the Olympics before losing another Grand Slam final to Stan Wawrinka in New York and struggling to find his footing in the fall season.
Meanwhile, Murray, who had been down 16950 to 8915 in rankings points following the French, went on the best run of his career. He won in London, took home his second Wimbledon title and defended his Olympic gold medal in Rio. After a surprise quarterfinal loss at the U.S. Open, he didn't drop another match, going on a 25-match win streak to chase down Djokovic in early November and then defending his ranking with his first-ever ATP World Tour Finals win (the majority of which have been played in his backyard).
The No. 1 year-end ranking is not just the first for Murray - it's the only time a British player has done so too. Murray leapfrogged Djokovic two weeks ago in Paris, thus turning his third week at No. 1 into a year-end title. Only two other players in history had spent less time at the top spot before securing the year-end title. Both (Gustovo Kuerten in 2000 and Andy Roddick in 2003) took over in the final tournament of the season. It's also the first time in the past 13 seasons that someone besides Federer, Djokovic or Rafael Nadal will be atop the rankings at the start of the new year.
Murray has played two of the three longest best-of-three matches in 2016 during the tournament, including a three-hour, 38-minute epic in the semis against Milos Raonic. Any worry about fatigue was quickly countered by Djokovic's tight play. His footwork was non-existent. He was hitting shallow in the court - a sure-sign of not feeling your groundstrokes. He was hitting off-balance. It was a microcosm of his problems since Roland Garros, though those issues still resulted in a Grand Slam final and going 4-0 against the top players in the world at the WTF before falling to Murray. (May all of our slumps be as productive as Djokovic's.)
What his problem? It's a mental issue, the kind Djokovic has struggled with throughout his career, but rarely for so long and never so out of the blue. With the Serb's loss, he was denied his fifth year-end No. 1 ranking in the last six years, which would have tied him with Roger Federer and Jimmy Connors for the second-most ever, just one behind record-holder Pete Sampras.
It's fitting he didn't. Either way, Andy Murray had the best tennis season of 2016, winning one Grand Slam, an Olympic gold (not counted in the rankings) and the ATP World Tour Finals. He brought home eight trophies including three other Masters titles and overall won a whopping 13 more matches than anyone else on Tour.
The problems of Novak Djokovic can (and will) be diagnosed and dissected over the short tennis offseason but it's important to remember that it took a Herculean effort by Murray to even make the year-end race close. Yes, Djokovic blew it but it still took one man playing the best tennis of his life to grab No. 1 from him.
What matters today is that Andy Murray, the perennial tennis bridesmaid, always peeking in on the Big Three while desperately trying to join their club, outlasted them all in 2016. Andy Murray, number one. It's been a long time coming.
