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ATP World Tour Finals 2014

 

Today marks the start of the season-ending event for tennis' best singles players and doubles teams, as the 2014 ATP World Tour begins inside the O2 Arena in London.

It pits (barring withdrawals) the best eight singles and doubles players against each other in two groups of four for round robin matches, with the top two from each group going on to contest the semis, and then the finals.

Ranked sixth, Andy Murray has qualified and has been grouped in with second seed Roger Federer, fifth seed Kei Nishikori from Japan and Canadian eighth seed Milos Raonic.

The positive news is that Murray has avoided the defending champion Novak Djokovic, who beat him only last week at the Paris Masters to end his 11-match winning run.

World number three (and last years runner up) Rafael Nadal will miss the tournament through injury – a fate that befell the Brit last year.

Murray fans will no doubt be out and in force to back their man all the way, although he does have a mixed record against the three group opponents. He is tied 11-11 with Federer, who is attempting to regain the world number one spot and win this title for a seventh time. Encouragingly he has a 3-0 winning record against Nishikori but trails Canadian Raonic 3-1 in their head-to-heads.

Taking the Tour Title is first and foremost in all the players thoughts but with the winner taking home almost £1.1 million in prize money it would be hard to say it is irrelevant, with the runner up banking the measly sum of just over £400,000.

In the doubles last year there was a big surprise when sixth ranked Spanish duo David Marrero and Fernando Verdasco came out on top by defeating the Bryan brothers, however with the defending champions not taking part this year, the American duo will again enter the event as the favourites.

And with an attendance expected of over 260,000 fans this years event is shaping up to be just as special - if not more - than previous Tour Finals.

Explore match schedules and more here.