Win over Federer 'as good as title itself', says Murray
Friday, 14 Nov 2008 16:48
Andy Murray says beating Roger Federer is "almost as good as winning Masters Cup title"
Andy Murray has claimed his amazing three-set victory over defending champion Roger Federer was as good as winning the Masters Cup title.
The 21-year-old proved he is now among the world's elite players by eliminating the Swiss star from a tournament he has won for four out of the past five years.
Despite not needing to gain any sort of positive result from the contest, due to having already qualified for the semi-finals, Murray gave his all to beat Federer - who had to win to progress from the group stage.
And afterwards the Scot said he had done so because beating the former world number one in Shanghai meant so much to him.
"A win over Roger Federer is almost as good as winning the Masters Cup itself," he said afterwards.
"I'm obviously going to be a bit tired [for the semi-final] tomorrow but it was worth it.
"It's an awesome feeling."
Murray recovered from losing the first set to seal the second on a tiebreak, despite holding a two-break lead.
And in a rollercoaster third set both players exchanged two breaks of serve before the world number four finally claimed the scalp of the top seed when he broke his serve for a third time at 4-5.
"With a scoreline like that and all the chances I had it was mentally tough, but to beat Federer in the Masters Cup is just awesome," the Scot continued.
"When you play against Roger you expect him to play some great tennis, you expect big serves, big returns and getting some shots back that he probably shouldn't.
"But I thought I dealt with it pretty well."
After winning the red group with three wins out of three in the round-robin stage, Murray now faces a semi-final against Russia's Nikolay Davydenko.
The winner of that will face either world number three Novak Djokovic or world number nine Gilles Simon - who qualified from Murray's group because of the Scot's victory over Federer, and is only present because of world number one Rafael Nadal's withdraw with a knee injury.