Andy Murray refused to be downcast after failing in his bid to replicate his Olympic gold medal triumph by again experiencing victory in London at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals.
The US Open champion found himself completely overrun by a resurgent Roger Federer and fell to a two sets defeat in the semi-finals.
But Murray said: “It was an incredibly positive year but I would have loved to finish it with a win.
“Why would I look back negatively after achieving things I’ve never achieved before? I think Roger played well and once he gets ahead, he’s incredibly hard to stop. He tends to play better and better and I feel like I gave him the advantage at the beginning of the second set.”
Murray added: “If you told me last year that I would be sitting in this position now with the results I’ve had in the last 12 months I would have signed up for that straight away.”
The London crowd seemed as intent on supporting Federer as they did Murray but even that did not leave a sour taste for the British no.1. He said: “Sometimes when you lose a tough match or a big final, you spend the next few days thinking, ‘Is it worth it? Is all the training making a difference? Will I ever be good enough to win one of these big events?’
“I’ve been through so many highs and lows already throughout my career, and to experience the sort of highs that I did in the summer made me realize it absolutely was worth it.
“I finally did it, and it’s given me a lot of motivation going into next year to keep working on my game, keep improving. That will be the main thing I’ll take from this year.”
Murray is intent on being in peak condition when he bids for another Grand Slam title at next January’s Australian Open and will warm up defending the title he won this year at the calendar-opening Brisbane International.
He has his December mapped out and said: “The off-season is a couple of weeks longer this year so it gives me a bit more time to fit in a holiday, training in Florida, and then come back to spend Christmas at home for the first time in four years.
“Then I’m playing the exhibition in Abu Dhabi because it’s on my way to Australia and it seems a good way to get back in the swing of things by playing a couple of days against some of the world’s best players.”
Topics: Andy Murray, Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, British tennis news, London tennis news, Mussa, Olympic tennis news, Scottish tennis news