Forget speed, strength, and agility. The men’s final of the 2013 Sony Open was the epitome of a mental game. In a match that had more breaks of serve than holds, both David Ferrer and Andy Murray were barely hanging on by the end. When people say that the game of tennis is just as much mental as it is physical, they aren’t exaggerating. This match wasn’t going to be about who could outrun the other most, or who could make it to the ball faster. This match was going to come down to who could hold their composure the longest.

It started out for Murray about as un-attractively as it ended. The first set saw Andy being broken three times, winning only 50% of his first serves, and an equally awful return game. It was easily one of worst sets of tennis I’ve seen Andy Murray play in a long time. And though it looked like Ferrer was going to easily skate through, the Spaniard returned the favor and then played one of his worst sets in the second. It was one set all, and things had only just begun. The first six games of the third set saw both players exchanging breaks of serve. At one point, I seriously questioned whether the match was going to be won without either one being able to hold serve. And despite Ferrer suffering from cramps and Murray obviously suffering from exhaustion, the Scot (who plays for Great Britain) came out victorious in a tiebreak.

“It was so tough physically and mentally that you were just trying to play each point,” Murray said. “I wasn’t thinking too much only because I was so tired and [did] not [have] too many nerves at the end of the match, either.”

Murray’s win today allows him to surpass Roger Federer as the world no. 2. And though he insists that it doesn’t change much in terms of his approach to his game, he has to feel pretty good knowing that his ranking automatically puts him at the opposite end of the draw from Novak Djokovic – a player who has proven to give him loads of trouble in the past.