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BARCLAYS ATP WORLD TOUR FINALS

November 14, 2016

Andy Murray

London, England, United Kingdom

A. MURRAY/M. Cilic

6-3, 6-2

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. That must have been a special moment, being announced as world No. 1, hearing the reception you got?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, it was a great reception obviously. A really, really good atmosphere tonight. Yeah, it was obviously nice to play in that stadium with the crowd like that. It obviously helps.

After a long kind of few months, it's nice to know that I'm going to be finishing the year, you know, playing in that sort of atmosphere. It helps you get up for the matches a bit more, as well.

Yeah, it was good.

Q. You said before you played Isner in Paris, the nerves were still there, didn't feel like you achieved something, you were still flat. How were the nerves tonight? How much were they a factor in some of the double-faults in the first set? Were you extra nervous?
ANDY MURRAY: No, not really. No, I wasn't really. I think it's one of the things, you know, that can be tricky in a group stage, because you have that sort of feeling a little bit like you can afford lose a match, which is never really the case.

I didn't feel any more nervous than usual. It's just quite different conditions in there than what we've been practicing in during the week. It's a lot slower than it has been. A lot of the players have said that that I've spoken to. I don't know if it's because of the humidity in there. Normally when it gets hotter, it tends to speed the ball up. But it felt much slower tonight than it had done during the week.

Obviously playing with a packed crowd, it changes things a bit. I think maybe some of the errors at the beginning were more getting used to playing in new surroundings again.

Q. Regarding the world No. 1 ranking, did it feel strange when you ran into Novak the first time after getting the world No. 1 ranking? When you went into a match like this evening, your first one officially as No. 1, was it easy or difficult to put it out of your mind?
ANDY MURRAY: I've not been thinking about that really. Sort of the day it happened and also the day of the final in Paris, it was definitely on my mind, you know, quite a lot. Then I had a lot of message on the Monday.

The last few days, I haven't thought about it too much. It didn't change much for me.

And then when I went out? I forgot the beginning part of the question.

Q. Did it feel different or strange meeting Novak after that?
ANDY MURRAY: No. I mean, no. No, it wasn't strange. I mean, we've known each other for such a long time. I think both of us have been kind of used to congratulating each other over the years. I mean, we bump into each other every week after he's won an event the last few years, and it's become quite a normal thing to congratulate him on winning tournaments and everything he's achieved. It's quite normal.

We don't go, Congratulations, and talk about it for 10 minutes. We talk about our families and other stuff. We don't discuss it much.

Q. You know pretty well Jonas Bjorkman. He was with the other side. Is that a big influence, a good thing, or it doesn't matter at all?
ANDY MURRAY: I've never lost to one of my ex-coaches, so I don't know. It obviously hasn't had, you know, a negative effect on me.

Yeah, I don't think it makes much difference, to be honest. All of the players really know kind of how I play pretty much now. Obviously there's a few extra things that Jonas would know, things that I was maybe working on with him at the time.

I'm also working on different things now than I was last year. Things change and move on. You improve certain parts of your game. That's it.

Q. How has your settled family life impacted on your tennis? Is that a big reason why you're here at the O2 as No. 1?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I don't know. It's quite a difficult question. It doesn't sort of directly impact your tennis. I mean, you have to still go out there on the practice court, train hard, get in the gym, work hard on your game.

We've spoken about this a lot the last few months. It's kind of away from the court, I've been dealing with wins and losses much better than I did in the past I think just because I have something else that's more important. Throughout the year I'm not having - haven't this year anyway - had so many ups and downs because I'm not sort of getting too high after wins or too down after losses, which was maybe the case in the past.

When I won in Paris, it was great. I really enjoyed that. But then you come home and you're back with your family. You're just back to normal. I'm not thinking about Paris and rankings and things like that. So I feel just a bit more sort of even-keeled through the year.

Q. Can you talk about the next match against Nishikori, who played a solid match today against Stan.
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I didn't see the match, but he obviously must have played very well. To win against a player like Stan with that scoreline, I don't think Stan had really any chances on Kei's serve either. Looked like from the scoreline a comfortable match.

I would say this is probably his best year that he's had on the tour. He's one of the best players in the world. He's been playing very well the last few months especially.

Q. Sort of a broader player council question. Can you talk about how you feel the sport deals with the complexities of lack of effort or perceived lack of effort and how that can be policed or not policed.
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I think it's a very difficult one to deal with because obviously we spoke quite a lot about, like, Nick's situation in Shanghai, which was obviously bad. He also admitted to it, as well, which is actually good in some ways because a lot of people don't try their best, then would just say nothing to sort of defend themselves so they don't get in a bad situation.

There will be matches during the year, especially on the doubles tour, where singles players play, they lose in singles, they just step on the court to play the match.

But it's a difficult one to police. I don't really know how you would go about that. It's a difficult one, for sure.

Q. You've been back in the company of Ivan now for six days. In that time, how many occasions has the phrase 'world No. 1 ranking' come up in conversations between the two of you?
ANDY MURRAY: Once, I think, after the first practice that I had on Thursday. Yeah, we haven't spoken about it.

I spoke to him about it on the Saturday night in Paris. We spoke on the phone about it, then moving forward, you know, for the end of this year and stuff. But since we've been here, I haven't spoken with the team about it, not once.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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