Paris: After all the battles and hard graft chasing the World No.1 spot, Briton Andy Murray arrived there without hitting a ball Saturday as Milos Raonic pulled out of their Paris Masters semifinal with a leg injury.
The triple Grand Slam winner, who will take over from Serb Novak Djokovic at the top when the rankings are updated Monday, still went out on centre court for a practice session in front of a bemused crowd.
“Yesterday at I believe 4-2 in the first set I started feeling some pain in my leg,” fourth-seeded Canadian Raonic told a news conference, referring to his match with Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. “I didn’t think too much of it at that point. I had an MRI half an hour ago…they found that I have a grade one tear in the right quadriceps.”
Murray, who was guaranteed to climb from second to first in the rankings if he reached the final, is the first Briton to get to No.1. At 29 years and 174 days, he will be the oldest player to reach the summit for the first time since John Newcombe in 1974.
Murray became the 26th man to reach the position since the modern rankings came in 43 years ago. No doubt, the entire Great Britain will be rejoicing his feat. First, the Wimbledon title, then the Olympics gold and now the No. 1 spot. What else could a country want?
“It is simply unbelievable,” Murray said during a courtside interview. “You set a goal, you work towards it and then when it happens, reality hits you. Frankly at the start of the year the No.1 spot was not my goal, the Olympic gold was. But I have now achieved both.”
As they say, tennis now has a new king.
Agencies
