Andy Murray becomes world number one after Raonic withdraws from Paris Masters

Britain’s Andy Murray will become the world number one for the first time after Milos Raonic withdrew from their Paris Masters semi-final.

Murray, 29, needed only to reach the final in Paris after current number one Novak Djokovic lost to Marin Cilic in Friday’s quarter-final.

But Canadian Raonic announced before Saturday’s match that he was injured.

Murray will be the first British singles player to hold top spot since computerized rankings began in 1973.

The Scot will play John Isner in Sunday’s final, after the American beat Cilic 6-4 6-3 in Saturday’s first semi-final.

Djokovic had topped the rankings for 122 weeks, and completed his career Grand Slam by beating Murray in the French Open final in June.

But Murray has reached 11 finals in his past 12 events, and has won 73 matches in the year, a personal record.

He will be officially confirmed as world number one when the revised rankings are released on Monday.

‘I had trouble getting out of bed’

Raonic, 25, had beaten France’s 11th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-2 7-6 (7-4) to set up a repeat of July’s Wimbledon final on Saturday.

However, he said that he had felt a problem in his right leg during the victory, which a scan revealed was a tear to his quad.

“Yesterday at I believe 4-2 in the first set I began feeling something in my leg – I didn’t think too much of it at the time,” he said.

“This morning I had trouble waking up and getting out of bed.

“I had some tests and an MRI and they found I have a grade one tear in the right quad so I’m unfortunately not able to compete.”

The stats behind Murray’s rise to number one

• He is the 26th man to hold the top spot since computerised rankings began in 1973.
• A player’s ranking is determined by his best 18 tournament results over the preceding 52 weeks.
• Murray is the second-oldest player to debut at number one behind John Newcombe, who was 30 years and 11 days old when he achieved the feat in 1974.
• Murray holds the record for the longest time between first becoming number two and becoming number one – seven years and over two months.
• His seven stints at number two are tied with Mats Wilander and Stefan Edberg for the longest in the ATP’s database of week-by-week records, which goes back to June 1984.
• Seven players since June 1984 have never become number one after becoming number two: Michael Stich, Goran Ivanisevic, Michael Chang, Petr Korda, Alex Corretja, Magnus Norman and Tommy Haas.

 

Posted by Janice Johnson (Source: BBC)