Today marks the start of the season-ending event for tennis' best singles players and doubles teams, as the 2015 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 second, Andy Murray has qualified and has been grouped in with fourth seed Stan Wawrinka from Switzerland, and Spaniards fifth seed Rafael Nadal, seventh seed David Ferrer.
The positive news is that Murray has avoided the defending champion Novak Djokovic, who beat him only last week at the Paris Masters in straight sets. The Serbian Number 1 is in a group with the third seed Roger Federer, Czech sixth seed Tomas Berdych, and eighth seed Kei Nishikori from Japan.
Murray fans will no doubt be out and in force to back their man all the way, and he does have an encouraging record against his three group opponents on the World Tour. He is up 8-6 up against this year’s French Open winner Stan Wawrinka, and 11-6 up against Ferrer, however he is losing 6-15 to Rafa Nadal in their head-to-heads, but then again the Spaniard does have a positive record against all 7 other players in the tournament!
Taking the Tour Title is first and foremost in all the players thoughts but with the winner potentially taking home over £1.5 million in prize money it would be hard to say it is irrelevant, with the runner up banking the measly sum of just over £750,000.
Last year’s final was the first ever not to be played, as Novak Djokovic won via walkover after Roger Federer had to withdraw due to a back injury.
In the doubles last year the brothers Bob and Mike Bryan came out on top for the fourth time by defeating Ivan Dodig, and Marcelo Melo, and the American duo will again enter the event as the favourites, however there will also be British representation as the fourth seeds are Andy’s brother Jamie Murray and his partner Australian John Peers who have won two tour titles this year, and finished runners up at Wimbledon and the US Open.
And with an attendance expected of over 260,000 fans this year’s event is shaping up to be just as special - if not more - than previous Tour Finals.
Explore match schedules and more here.