Wednesday 16 November 2016 19:54, UK
Sky Sports' Tennis analyst Peter Fleming believes Andy Murray's rollercoaster win over Kei Nishikori was one of the greatest matches he has seen.
The world No 1 needed three hours and 20 minutes to survive the longest three-set match in ATP World Tour Finals history to battle past fifth-seed Nishikori 6-7 (9-11) 6-4 6-4, with the first set alone taking 85 minutes.
It is the first time Murray has started the Tour Finals with two consecutive group stage wins since his tournament debut in Shanghai in 2008.
Murray's refusal to be outlasted by the obdurate Nishikori keeps him on course to retain top spot in the ATP rankings at the end of the year.
Fleming was impressed by the Scot's tenacity to hang in during nervy periods in the match and show amazing powers of recovery to all-but assure his semi-final spot.
"That was one of the best tennis matches I've ever seen," said Fleming. "The quality of tennis from both guys, who were whacking groundstrokes as hard as they could seemingly, and making incredible defensive saves. Murray's fighting capacity is immense.
"Both guys were down so many times and they both fought back from 15-40, 0-30 and Nishikori very nearly got back into the final set after being down 5-1.
"It was really fun and we might even see another match or two like that as this week progresses."
Fleming feels Murray will pick himself up again for his final round-robin match against US Open champion Stan Wawrinka on Friday without too many concerns.
"I'm sure he'll be stiff tomorrow, but he's strong - he's an animal," said Fleming. "I think physically, he might still be stiff on Friday, but I don't think it's going to hurt him enough to keep him from winning. I just think he's been playing so well at the moment that he has the edge over everybody."
Even after more than two-and-a-half hours on court, Murray was still going strong in the final set, and although his serve failed to fire as well as he had hoped for, Fleming believes that was all down to Nishikori's intense pressure.
"His serve comes and goes sometimes," added Fleming. "Playing against Nishikori is difficult because he returns serve very well and just adds a little more pressure onto the server and Andy's serve wasn't like it has been in the past - that will be something to work on tomorrow."
Check our game-by-game coverage from all group matches at the ATP World Tour Finals in London - including Andy Murray v Stan Wawrinka on Friday - on skysports.com/tennis, our app for mobile devices and iPad and our Twitter account @skysportstennis.
