Barclays ATP World Tour final—London

World No. 4 Andy Murray put forth a sublime effort to his London campaign on Sunday, defeating reigning US Open champ Juan Martin del Potro 6-3, 3-6, 6-2 in two hours and five minutes.

With a full house partaking in the first round robin match of the event, Murray began on top form in the opening set, breaking del Potro in the third and fifth games, resting on consistent serving and penetrating return of serves.

Del Potro, who appeared fatigued and unmotivated in the first set, increased his level of intensity to begin the set two, duplicating Murray's feat of breaking serve twice, leveling the match a set a piece.

With Del Potro's average ground stroke speed almost 10 miles faster than Murray's (77.4 mph to 67.5 mph), the towering Argentine appeared the front runner heading into the deciding set.

After capturing a routine hold of serve in the opening game of set three, Murray withstood eight of 10 first serves by Del Potro in the second game to lead 2-0.

Murray would stretch his third set lead to 4-2, winning all 10 of his first serve points.

The Scot's timely trips to the net were also integral part of his winning formula, capturing an impressive 9-12 opportunities when moving forward.

Del Potro, who remained diligent with his potent forehand, struck 31 winners to 38 unforced errors.

Serving at 2-5 down in the final set, Del Potro saved his first match point with a service winner, only to have Murray win the ensuing rally with a backhand winner—his 31st of the match.

With the win, Murray captured a 1-0 win-loss record in Group A action, while Del Potro fell to 0-1.

A positive note for the Argentine will remain his second set win over Murray. In the event that two or more players in the Group A end up with the same win-loss total—the tiebreaker would take into account most sets won.

All in all, the win by Murray will be remembered for his second serve points won, which reached an astounding 68 percent.

Murray's challenge going forward for the remainder of his career will be his ability to translate his return of serve prowess into best of five set matches. Although the task is much more difficult in a Grand Slam event, such statistics will be vital in Murray's ability to capture his first major title.

Murray, who is relatively fresh coming into the season ending championships, elaborated on his match form after defeating del Potro.

"Me and Juan haven't played that much since the US Open. I kind of expected a little bit of a scrappy match maybe," said Murray. "He didn't start particularly well, but after 5-0 (in the first set), I thought the standard was very good. Played some great points. Obviously happy to get the win.

Tactically, I've always been quite good. So I found a way through it today. He does have a big forehand. He can hit a lot of winners; he can make mistakes off of it. There was a period [from the] end of the first set till the beginning of the third where he was hitting it big. I managed to keep myself in the point with sort of low slices and backhands, up the line. They helped a lot to kind of keep him out of that backhand court a bit."

Del Potro, who fell to 1-3 at the event, spoke about his nose bleed in the first set, along with his missed opportunities throughout his defeat.

“I have a big nose, that’s the problem,” the Argentine said. “It’s just bleeding, I don’t know why.”

“Against Andy, always the match is very tough,” explained del Potro. “We play three sets in every tournament, every match. Today was a little strange, but he played great tennis in the third set. He was a little lucky, but you need the luck to win and today it was with him. We had a very good atmosphere, very good crowd. Many Argentineans come to watch this tournament. So I'm very, very happy to be part of the eight players."

The night session at the O2 Arena will feature world No. 1 Roger Federer against Spaniard Fernando Verdasco.

Federer, who leads the pair's head-to-head 3-0, will be playing with extra incentive this week with his No. 1 ranking on the line.

In the event that Federer wins his three round robin matches, he will clinch the No. 1 ranking for the year.

Verdasco, who is making his debut at the event, will attempt to utilize his forehand and left-handed serve to offset the rhythm of his Swiss opponent.

Another sold out crowd is slated for the evening session.

In doubles action, the team of Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic were ousted by the unheralded Polish duo of Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski, 6-4, 6-4.

Nestor, who recently won his ninth different Masters 1000 title in Paris (the only player in singles and doubles to do so on either Tour), was kind enough to provide me with a blog the day before his first round match. Nestor will be blogging throughout the week. Stay tuned.

Here's what the five time Grand Slam champ had to say:

So here we are at the end of another grueling season. It’s the year end championships, or the decider as they have been dubbed it, where the best of the best battle it out for year-end supremacy.

Qualifying for this tournament is a goal that every player has in January when the season starts and what a treat it is to be part of the show. Most tournaments on tour treat the players quite well but the masters take it to another level, which says a lot because we get treated well at every tournament we play.

One example is the boat shuttle they have organized to the site so that we don’t sit in traffic as the journey from hotel to venue is a straight shot along the Thames.

You can say we are sightseeing every time we go back and forth from our matches and practice as we pass Big Ben, House of Parliament, Eye of London, and the infamous Tower of London where King Henry ruled the town kind of like Andy Murray present day.

Having my wife and daughter with me is always nice and as this is the first time we are staying in the city as opposed to June where we are in Wimbledon village for the month. Both places are great, but being downtown gives you a whole new appreciation of how amazing this city is.

So many places to walk around and quite different from life in Canada where you need a car almost everywhere you go. Don’t get me wrong, I still regard the Canadian Open as my favorite tournament of the year because there is nothing like playing in front of friends and family.

Speaking of matches, we are first up tomorrow. We have the honour of opening the tournament so I am going to check out now to make sure that I am well rested to try and get off to a good start. But I will be back soon to talk about the state of the art O2 Arena where it all goes down. See you then.

Daniel

Tuesday's action in London will feature the commencement or Group B competition.

No. 2 seed Rafael Nadal will take on Robin Soderling in a French Open rematch, to be followed by No. 3 seed Novak Djokovic vs. Nikolay Davydenko.

Please check back throughout the week for continuing daily coverage from the Tour finale in London.