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TENNIS:THERE IS sometimes an element of dead men walking in the ATP World Tour Finals as the eight best players in the world fight it out for the last major prize of the season. All of them are feeling the stresses and strains of a long season and it said much for Andy Murray’s mental fortitude that he managed to dredge up just enough energy to win his final round-robin match 6-4, 6-7, 7-6 against Spain’s Fernando Verdasco.

Even then he could not be sure, after a match lasting exactly three hours, that he was through to tomorrow’s semi-finals. He knew all depended on the match between Roger Federer, the world number one, and Argentina’s Juan Martin del Potro who beat the Swiss in this year’s US Open final.