Murray Crushed By Nadal In ATP Finals

And he is set to prove that he is nearly back to his best when he tests himself against the current world No.2, Andy Murray, at the O2 Arena on Wednesday with the victor going top of Ilie Nastase Group.

But, aside from one poor game at the start of the second set, he played a high-quality match, and one that will not have taken too much out of him.

Andy Murray can move within sight of a semi-final place with victory over Rafael Nadal at the ATP World Tour Finals on Wednesday.

The Swiss had been heavily criticised for his performance against Nadal on Monday but he showed his fighting spirit to recover from 2-5 in the opening set against David Ferrer and win 7-5 6-2.

Wawrinka will have to improve dramatically against Ferrer if he is to keep alive his hopes of emulating last year's showing when he lost to compatriot Roger Federer in the semi-finals.

It continues a renaissance for the former world number one, who failed to win a grand slam title this year for the first time since 2004 and who slumped to 10th in the rankings in June before climbing back to five.

"He obviously played better than he did when I played him earlier in the year", the Wimbledon 2013 victor said. That's important for me because I know I worked to find the level that I am today.

By the closing stages he was winning just 10% of points behind his second serve and Nadal was happy to capitalise, breaking once again and firing away a forehand victor on match point.

"I served an extremely low percentage of first serves (43%), maybe the lowest percentage I have served the whole year in any match", said Murray. It's going to be interesting how I'm going to play, if I'm going to bring the positive game that I started to play [on Wednesday] and also how he's going to be.

"I had some hair in my eye, and I just wanted to get rid of it", he said. "That's not good enough against someone as good as Rafa".

"If I hadn't played in London, I would have gone into the Davis Cup final without any matches for several weeks, and even though the surface is different, taking on the best players in the world must be great preparation for such a big event".

That result means Nadal has won the group following his 6-4 6-1 victory over Murray earlier, and the victor of the clash between the Scot and Wawrinka on Friday will qualify for the last four in second place.

It took Djokovic an hour and 51 minutes to beat Wawrinka and get revenge for his loss in the French Open final in May.