Magnificent Murray Guarantees No. 2 Ranking, Reaches Final

© Getty ImagesDefending champion Andy Murray takes Center Court Wednesday.

Scot Andy Murray has guaranteed he will rise to a new career-high of No. 2 in the South African Airways 2009 ATP Rankings on Monday, after snapping Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal’s four-year dominance at the top of the men’s game.

Murray became the first Briton since Roger Taylor in 1970 (l. to Rod Laver) to reach the Rogers Cup final on Saturday, after defeating seventh-seeded Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-4, 7-6(8) in one hour and 50 minutes on Saturday afternoon. It was the pair’s third meeting.

Murray will be the first player other than Federer and Nadal, who both lost in the Rogers Cup quarter-finals on Friday, to rank No. 2 since 18 July 2005. Murray is already the highest-ranked Briton in ATP history (since 1973). By reaching Sunday’s final, Murray has accumulated 8,850 points to surpass Nadal’s total haul of 8,665 points.

“It’s great,” said Murray. “In terms of rankings [it is] the biggest step I've made so far. I played consistently well this year, so bar winning a [Grand] Slam, I've done enough to justify being [No.] 2, and getting closer to hopefully one day becoming No. 1 is one of my goals. I’ve put in a lot of hard work to get to this stage, and I keep working hard to go one step farther.”

Third seed Murray saved two set points in a closely-fought tie-break at 5-6 and 7-8 and booked his place in his 18th ATP World Tour final (12-6 overall). The 22 year old Dunblane native saved five of six break points, winning 70 per cent of service points and hitting four aces.

Murray, a Rogers Cup semi-finalist in 2006 (l. to Gasquet) and 2008 (l. to Nadal), has improved to a 49-7 record (30-2 on hard) on the 2009 ATP World Tour season. He has held serve 35 out of 37 games this weeks and saved 17 of 19 break points overall. “It’s always tough against him, because he dominates or he dictates what happens in the match because of the way that he plays,” said Murray. “I just had to stay solid and made enough balls for him to make a few mistakes and [I] came up with a few big returns.”

This week, Murray was appearing for the first time since reaching the Wimbledon semi-finals (l. to Roddick). This season he has already lifted four ATP World Tour trophies at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open in Doha (d. Roddick), the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam (d. Nadal), the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami (d. Djokovic) and the AEGON Championships in London (d. Blake).

The 24-year-old Tsonga was making his Rogers Cup debut. The top Frenchman has won two ATP World Tour titles at the SA Tennis Open in Johannesburg (d. Chardy) and Open 13 in Marseille (d. Llodra), and dropped to 36-13 this year (26-7 on hard).

"I went to the net more than my last match, [but] Andy's a very good player and it's tough to go to the net every time against him," admitted Tsonga. "He's difficult to play because he defends very good and he's really, really quick. It's tough to put him far off the ball."

Murray, who spent two weeks training in Miami prior to the start of the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament, is the 12th player in the history of the ATP World Tour Rankings (since 1973) to reach a career-high No. 2. He is the first player other than Nadal or Federer to rank No. 2 since Lleyton Hewitt on July 18, 2005. There have been 24 players to rank No. 1. Here is a list of players to rank No. 2: 

Manuel Orantes (ESP) - 2 (August 23, 1973)              
Ken Rosewall (AUS) - 2 (April 30, 1975)
Guillermo Vilas (ARG) - 2 (April 30, 1975)
Arthur Ashe (USA) - 2 (May 12, 1976)
Michael Stich (GER) - 2 (November 22, 1993)
Goran Ivanisevic (CRO) - 2 (July 4, 1994)                                     
Michael Chang (USA) - 2 (September 9, 1996)
Petr Korda (CZE) - 2 (February 2, 1998)            
Alex Corretja (ESP) - 2 (February 1, 1999)
Magnus Norman (SWE) - 2 (June 12, 2000)
Tommy Haas (GER) - 2 (May 13, 2002) 
Andy Murray (GBR) - 2 (August 17, 2009)

Murray goes on to meet sixth seed Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina, who beat 2003 champion Andy Roddick in the evening session on Saturday. Del Potro had also won two ATP World Tour final meetings over Roddick at the 2008 LA Tennis Open in Los Angeles and at last week’s Legg Mason Tennis Classic in Washington D.C.