Andy Murray made a winning start to his ATP World Tour Finals campaign after a 6-4 6-4 victory over David Ferrer at London's O2.
The world No 2 passed the first test of his imperfect preparations by defeating a dogged Ferrer for a fifth successive time on Monday afternoon.
Murray is now 60-0 after winning the first set of a match this year, but was made to come from a break down in the second set to secure a perfect start to his campaign.
"He fought right the way through the end as always and made it extremely difficult for me," Murray told Sky Sports 1 HD after his win. "He didn't serve as well as he can, which helped me, and I played a little bit more solid at the end of both sets which helped me get the win."
Murray was able to win with plenty of help from Ferrer's serve. The seventh-seeded Spaniard had eight double-faults and landed only 49 percent of his first serves, while the British No 1 struck 23 winners and won an impressive 80 per cent of his first serve points.
Although Ferrer, 33, has enjoyed another typically efficient campaign, Murray has now won seven of their last eight meetings, including the recent semi-finals at the Paris Masters a fortnight ago.
Later on Monday in Ilie Nastase Group, Ferrer's compatriot Rafael Nadal, who missed the tournament last year, takes on French Open champion Stan Wawrinka.
Murray will meet the winner of that match on Wednesday, while Roger Federer can only now deny him the year-end number two ranking by winning all his matches this week.
"You need to try to win every match in two sets if you get the opportunity, which was good for me today," Murray added.
"I can still go out. Just because I won my first match, it gives me no guarantees. I will try and win the next one which will be tough against either Rafa [Nadal] or Stan [Wawrinka]."
The two-time major winner would normally have spent the build-up practising on hard courts, but this year his main focus comes after proceedings are wrapped up in London.
Murray will then travel to Ghent, where Great Britain will take on Belgium in the Davis Cup final on indoor clay from November 27-29.
You can watch Nadal against Wawrinka the ATP World Tour finals from 6pm on Monday night on Sky Sports 2 HD.
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