Break points are the kingmakers in a tennis match.

They are the moments in time that carry the most weight, the most influential points to the final outcome. Saving break points when serving will once again go a long way in anointing the king of the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals this month.

An Infosys ATP Beyond The Numbers analysis of saving break points for the Elite Eight during the 2016 season identifies three critical areas to watch: percentage of break points saved behind a first serve, behind a second serve, and the percentage-point gap between between the two, which highlights just how critical it is for players to make their first serve in this crucible of the 2016 season.

Focus No. 1: Percentage Saving Break Points Behind A First Serve

As you may expect, the tall timbers of Milos Raonic and Marin Cilic lead the way in saving break points behind a first serve, at 80 per cent and 75 per cent, respectively. Interestingly, Novak Djokovic is tied for third with 74 per cent, backing up his first serve with a ferocious “first-strike” baseline game that stops returners from extending the rally. The Serbian is tied with Stan Wawrinka. Raonic, Cilic, Djokovic and Wawrinka are the only players above the Elite Eight average.

Saving Break Points: Starting With A First Serve

Focus No. 2: Percentage Saving Break Points Behind A Second Serve

Wawrinka surges to the top of this important list, winning 64 per cent of break points behind a second serve. Japanese star Kei Nishikori jumps from sixth best in saving break points behind his first serve to second best in saving break points behind his second serve, which is a major reason he has successfully navigated his way back to London this year. A warning sign for both Dominic Thiem and Gael Monfils is that they occupy the last two spots in this critical list. The two London newcomers are also last in saving break points behind first serves.

Saving Break Points: Starting With A Second Serve

Focus No. 3: Percentage-Point Gap Between Saving Break Points Behind First Serve vs. Second Serve

The lower the number in this category the better, minimising the effect of missing a first serve in such an important moment in a match. The big guns, Cilic and Raonic, who did so well behind their first serve, fall to the bottom of this list.

Percentage-Point Gap Saving Break Points Behind First Serve vs. Second Serve

We conclude with the current No. 1 in the Emirates ATP Rankings, Andy Murray. The Scot is a model of consistency in these three categories, finishing fifth in all of them. Maybe that’s the secret – stay solid while others rise and fall around you.

Only five men have done it, and it’s been almost 20 years since the last player making his debut at the ATP World Tour season finale won the tournament at the first attempt.

But Alex Corretja, who triumphed at the season finale in 1998, says fans shouldn’t count out Gael Monfils and Dominic Thiem when they make their debuts at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London next week.

Sure, other players – namely, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic – have more experience at The O2 and will likely be favoured to reach the semi-finals and final. But Monfils and Thiem have proven all year that they belong among the Top 8, winning ATP World Tour titles and advancing deep into Grand Slam championships and ATP World Tour Masters 1000 events.

The key for the Frenchman and Austrian, though, Corretja said, will be convincing themselves that they belong among the best in the world at one of the game’s biggest tournaments.

“You know what, why not?” Corretja told ATPWorldTour.com. “If any of them win the tournament, no one should be surprised, because they’re good players, they’re very good players. Of course, the other ones have more experience, but they’re good players.”

Thiem and Monfils both have plenty of reason to be confident at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, which starts Sunday. They’ve both put together career-best seasons that have landed them in London.

The 30-year-old Monfils has at last balanced his colourful flair with on-court consistency. He reached finals in Rotterdam, Monte-Carlo and won the biggest title of his career at Washington. At the US Open, Monfils matched his career-best Grand Slam result by reaching the semi-finals (l. to Djokovic). “I’m very happy. I had a lot of success this season. Many people said 30 years old is late, but I’m happy. I made it. I’m not thinking about the past. I’m thinking about the present, the future,” Monfils said.

The 23-year-old Thiem has also excelled all season long, capturing four titles – Buenos Aires, Acapulco, Nice and Stuttgart – on three different surfaces – clay, hard and grass – and achieving his best Grand Slam result at Roland Garros (semi-finals, l. to Djokovic). “It’s a big, big dream come true… I was probably the happiest guy in the world when it happened,” Thiem said of qualifying for London.

He and Monfils will try to join Corretja, John McEnroe, Guillermo Vilas, Ilie Nastase and Stan Smith as the only players to win the season finale during their debut year. (Smith won the tournament the first year it was held, in 1970). “Monfils’ and Thiem’s self-belief will be key in London,” Corretja said.

Watch Now: The Story of Dominic Thiem

“It can be intimidating debuting at the season finale, a tournament you’ve wanted to reach for much of your career but only the Top 8 players get invited to,” Corretja said. He, like Thiem, had tuned in to the event for years before he qualified, watching the likes of Boris Becker and Ivan Lendl compete at Madison Square Garden in New York.

“For the first time, you feel like, ‘Wow, I’m one of the big names in my sport’,” Corretja said. “You feel special when you qualify for that because you’ve been fighting so hard.”

But Monfils and Thiem can’t let the bright lights of The O2 blind them; they’d be wise to focus on playing aggressive from the start. With its round-robin play, the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals pits top players against top players on day one, unlike other tournaments where players might face the World No. 60 in the first round and not face a top player until rounds later. The format especially benefits players who can focus right from the start.

“You know you’re going to play with the best players in the world,” Corretja said. “But that also helps to raise your level because every player is very good. Everyone feels very aggressive… That makes you feel like you have to be brave the very first day.”

That’s how he felt when he opened against World No. 4 Andre Agassi in Hanover, Germany, the site of the 1998 ATP Tour World Championship. Corretja had gained confidence from his coach, Javier Duarte, who wisely stated before the event, “If you believe in yourself, you can win this thing.”

Corretja, like Thiem and Monfils, had achieved positive results earlier in the year – including four ATP World Tour titles – and the Spaniard relied on those results to inflate his confidence in Hanover. “I felt that I was physically very strong and mentally I was quite fresh,” he said.

But winning the season finale during his debut year against the likes of Agassi, Carlos Moya, Tim Henman and World No. 1 Pete Sampras, who was trying to finish year-end No. 1 for the sixth consecutive season? Corretja wasn’t so sure. “OK, let’s go day-by-day,” he remembers telling his coach.

But Corretja won his first round-robin match when Agassi retired down 5-7, 6-3, 2-1. The 5’11” Corretja then fell to Brit Tim Henman but dismissed countryman Albert Costa to reach the semi-finals.

There, he faced Sampras, whom Corretja had fallen to in the US Open quarter-finals two years prior, losing 7-6(7) in the fifth set. But he upset “Pistol Pete” and outlasted countryman Carlos Moya in the final to make history and prove his coach right.

If he could tell Monfils and Thiem one thing before they make their London debuts?

“I would pretty much say go for it. Don’t wait, don’t wait for it. Go for it,” Corretja said. “And then just believe. You’re there because you’re good enough to be with these guys.”

Combine a massive serve with gargantuan groundstrokes, sound volleys and an ability to produce your best on the biggest occasions, and what do you have? In Marin Cilic, someone none of the other seven competitors at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals will enjoy seeing on the other side of the net.

This is the second time Cilic has qualified for the season-ending tournament. On his debut in 2014 – the same year he won his first and, to date, only Grand Slam title at the US Open – he lost all three of his group matches in London, hampered by a niggling arm injury, and he left hugely disappointed, determined to return.

Motivation, then, will be high for the 28 year old, who booked his spot thanks to a strong second half of the season, which included a first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title, in Cincinnati in August, where he beat Andy Murray in the final, and then a first ATP World Tour Masters 500 title, in Basel last month. Just a few days ago he registered his first victory over Novak Djokovic to make the semi-finals of the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament in Paris. With a Davis Cup final against Argentina to come the week after London, this could be a big month for a man who, in many ways, has underachieved, given the huge talent he possesses.

When he won his US Open title, blowing away Roger Federer in the semi-finals and then outplaying Kei Nishikori in the final, there were many who saw his win as a changing of the guard. Seemingly nerveless in the latter stages in New York, he had the power to hit through the very best and the game to prosper. But, for a number of reasons, Cilic found it tough to reproduce that standard of play on a consistent basis.

“Even last year I was having some good tournaments but searching still for my game,” Cilic has said, not the first player to find it difficult to cope with the increased expectations that often follow a first Grand Slam win. “The first part of 2015, I missed because of injury. I was a little bit up and down with the game, trying to find that kind of a balance that I had at the US Open and that I had that second part of 2014 when I played really, really good tennis, the tennis that I need to play.

“Since then, I was on and off with that kind of style, so I feel just now, the last few months, that I found myself in a really good position and feeling good on the court.”

Temperamental as a junior, Cilic is calmer on court these days and softly-spoken, thoughtful and sensitive, which is not always the ideal combination for a tennis player for whom raw aggression is often a necessity. “I’m trying to be obviously focused on what I have to do on the court,” he said of his even-tempered disposition. “I see also some guys that show more emotions, that are more into fan communication. Obviously that’s a good thing, as we need to have different kinds of players.”

Until he won Cincinnati in August, Cilic had never made it beyond the quarter-finals of an ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event. His win over Murray gave him great confidence, as did his dominant performance in Basel.

It is almost seven years since Cilic first came to general attention, when he reached the semi-finals of the Australian Open. Hovering around the Top 20 for a few years, he flattered to deceive for a while, with outstanding performances accompanied by poor losses and it wasn’t until he joined forces with a Croatian hero, Goran Ivanisevic, that he really figured himself out. The pair began working together midway through 2013 and the following year, they peaked with Cilic’s US Open triumph.

In what was something of a surprise, the pair split midway through this year, with Cilic hiring Sweden’s Jonas Bjorkman, the former World No. 4 who enjoyed a successful stint in Murray’s coaching team last year. Together, the two men have been working on helping Cilic make even more of his monstrous serve by improving his understanding of how to play at the net.

“The idea in the background was to try to find somebody who could help me with my transition from the baseline to the net,” said Cilic. “I  felt that he might be really the person that could help me the most with that, as he was great in singles and also great in doubles and obviously knows the game really well.”

One of his most memorable encounters of the season was a five-set thriller in his Wimbledon quarter-final against Federer. “I was close there with Federer and I played great at Wimbledon,” he said. “Had three match points, didn’t convert on those. But I feel that when I’m playing well and playing the right way, that definitely the [big serving] game is always going to give me a chance and that I am always going to have good results with that.”

And Cilic is probably at his best indoors – eight of his 16 titles have come under a roof. If his serve functions as it can then, together with his improving net game, he will be a huge danger to his rivals this week.

Novak Djokovic will bid to win an unprecedented fifth successive title at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals next week, and a record-equalling sixth crown overall.

Over the past four years, the Serbian has often produced his best performances on the blue court at The O2 in London, including a 15-match winning streak. His only loss came in a 2015 round-robin defeat to Federer, whom he went onto beat in last year’s final.  In his four recent visits to the Greenwich peninsula, he has put together a 18-1 record and lost only eight sets.

By comparison, fellow five-time season finale titlist Ivan Lendl, who reached nine straight finals between 1980-1988, put together a 15-match winning streak at the event between 1985-1988. Federer, who has reached a record 10 finals, compiled a 14-match winning streak between 2003-2005 and won 10 consecutive matches between 2011-13.

ALL-TIME BARCLAYS ATP WORLD TOUR FINALS TITLE LEADERS

In Djokovic’s first banner year, 2011, incredibly, he went 1-2 in round-robin play and exited the tournament with a 70-6 (.921) match record on the season and 10 titles from 11 finals. During 2011, he went 6-5 in indoor matches, but since then he’s compiled a 47-3 overall record in controlled conditions.

With year-end No. 1 in the Emirates ATP Rankings on the line, Djokovic will next week attempt to improve upon his 2016 61-8 match record, with his eighth title of the season. He’ll also do all in his power to fight Andy Murray and earn his fifth top-spot finish in the past six years (except 2013).

Read Jon Wertheim’s Djokovic 2016 Programme Profile

To be the best, you have to beat the best. It’s not hyperbole, rather a fact of life on the ATP World Tour.

The competitors at next week’s Barclays ATP World Tour Finals have done just that, battling through a gauntlet of fierce competition throughout the 2016 season. This year, 12 players claimed at least four wins over Top 10 opposition. It’s no surprise that six of them will be appearing at The O2 in London for the season finale.

World No. 2 Novak Djokovic has consistently been the top performer against the Top 10 in the FedEx ATP Win-Loss Index, posting a ruthless 18-3 record (.857), including a 14-match win streak to open the year. The Serbian’s career index of .680 is also the best among the elite eight in London.

“I have been managing to win most of the big matches against Top 10 players,” Djokovic said during his streak. “I have a certain routine and certain preparation for these big matches that works for me.”

Visit FedEx ATP Performance Zone

In addition, Djokovic owns the best combined record against the seven other players to qualify for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals. He is 14-3 this year, with his lone defeats coming against Andy Murray in the final of the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event in Rome, Stan Wawrinka in the US Open title match and Marin Cilic on Friday at the BNP Paribas Masters.

Year-to-Date vs. Top 10

Coming in second in the year-to-date FedEx ATP Win-Loss Index is new World No. 1 Andy Murray, who is 11-5 (.688). Marin Cilic rounds out the trio entering London with a record above .500 against the Top 10. The Croatian won six of nine such encounters (.667), including a milestone victory over Murray for the Western & Southern Open crown in August.

“You have to keep improving week after week, and obviously to play consistently well on these tournaments and big tournaments,” Cilic, who arrives in London with a 4-4 mark against fellow season finale contenders, said last week. “Staying in the Top 10 is extremely challenging. There are a lot of obviously great players that are not in Top 10, as well.”

Debutantes Gael Monfils and Dominic Thiem know firsthand what it takes to compile a consistent campaign on the ATP World Tour. The charismatic Frenchman will be looking to notch his 30th career Top 10 win next week in London. While he has only claimed two such victories thus far in 2016, beating Jo-Wilfried Tsonga at the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters and Milos Raonic at the Rogers Cup, the quality of his performances against the Top 10 has significantly improved.

“Among the Top 10, the players are a lot better, but I never thought I was far from them except Novak,” said Monfils in Paris. “Maybe I have a psychological block when I play Novak. Maybe I believe it’s so difficult, but we are working on that. And for the other Top 10 players, I didn’t feel I was that far from them. I had match points against Milos and I beat him once and I went to four sets against Novak.”

Year-to-Date vs. Rest Of London Field

For Thiem, the Austrian has enjoyed a breakthrough season against the Top 10 of the Emirates ATP Rankings. He entered 2016 with just one victory in his young career and proceeded to amass a 4-7 (.364) mark, earning significant wins over former World No. 1’s Rafael Nadal on clay (Buenos Aires) and Roger Federer on grass (Stuttgart).

Rounding out the elite eight are Milos Raonic, who owns the fourth-highest year-to-date FedEx ATP Win-Loss Index among the contenders (.462), followed by Stan Wawrinka (.400).

There are all sorts of perks to being tennis’s centre of gravity, the resident of the rankings penthouse, the figure on the top line of every draw sheet. For one thing, winning never loses its savour. Success is its own reward, especially in competitive sport.

Besides that, the top player – and only the top player – experiences that aura of walking into a locker room each time knowing he is the man to beat. Yes, there are also the material trappings of being the World No. 1 in the Emirates ATP Rankings, with the endorsements and the celebrity opportunity and the income.

And yet, as the cliché goes, one can be the loneliest number. It can be solitary and secluded at the top. And there are other drawbacks to being the best. The top spot comes with a level of scrutiny that can be uncomfortable or, at a minimum, takes getting used to. There’s the pressure that comes from knowing that, as the top seed at each tournament, the best you can do is to fulfill expectation, to ‘hold court’ as it were. Everyone else in the draw can ascend; if all goes according to plan, you will uphold the status quo. Otherwise you will be upset, a term of art, but also one to be taken literally. Perhaps, above all, it’s easy to fall prey to the dizzyingly high expectation you yourself have set, easy to fall victim to your own standards of success.

Which bring us to Novak Djokovic. For an 18-month period, starting in 2015 and continuing through the midway point of 2016, Djokovic treated the rest of the field as a personal chew toy. He won tournaments by the lorry load, almost as a matter of routine. Not just majors – and he won five out of six of those in this gilded interval – but darn near every event he entered. As Andy Roddick, the former World No. 1, put it succinctly earlier this year: “It’s basically Novak’s world and everyone else is living in it, playing for second place.” Djokovic’s elite status was evident at Roland Garros where a first title made him only the eighth man in history to complete the career Grand Slam.

That as a backdrop, when Djokovic’s pace of winning slowed a bit this summer, it was treated as a crisis. A third-round loss at Wimbledon was coupled with a first-round defeat at the Olympics and an injury-addled loss in the US Open final. By the autumn, Andy Murray had undertaken a full-on siege for Djokovic’s top ranking spot, and earlier this month Murray moved above him in the Emirates ATP Rankings.

For the first time since the summer of 2014, Djokovic isn’t the No. 1 and “What’s wrong with Novak?” has become a bit of a parlour game in tennis circles. In truth, this is akin to, say, questioning the value of Google for ‘only’ posting double-digit stock gains. Even with a bit of a summer swoon – again, by his dizzyingly high standards – Djokovic is turning in one of the great seasons in tennis history. And should he win a fifth successive title at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London this month, to add to his 2008 triumph in Shanghai, he would not only tie Roger Federer’s mark of six year-end trophies, but Djokovic would garnish another season of supreme tennis. This week could even see Djokovic returning to No. 1. “I take pride,” he has said, “in finishing the season still playing at a high level.”

Djokovic has also taken pride in exhibiting balance, a perspective that enables him “not to get too high or too low during a match”, as he puts it. But also to take the inevitable nodes and crests of a career with perspective, a position that has come in handy these past few months.

As he told me earlier this season: “There were days and periods of my career when I went through a lot of doubtful moments. But you overcome those moments with the help of people around you – I think it’s very important that you surround yourself with positive people. People who are wise, who care about you, care about your career, care about you living your dreams. Then you try to take the best out of those moments and learn, rather than thinking you are not good enough. Of course, I went through those moments when I was thinking I’m not good enough. I had doubts whether or not I could become No. 1 and challenge Nadal and Federer, who were so dominant. But, it was a process of growing up and really maturing in every aspect of my being and my tennis career as well.”

That’s putting it gently. And along with success, Djokovic has embraced his role as a leader for the sport. At tournaments, he’ll lead kids’ clinics and greet wheelchair players as they leave the court and is often a fixture in the players’ lounge. So, too, he is unburdened by his celebrity, creating the smallest of buffer zones between himself and the public. From Miami to Madrid, countless fans do a double take and ask themselves, “Hey, wait, wasn’t that…?” and the answer was, almost assuredly, “Yes.” There was Djokovic, the day before the tournament, riding a bike through downtown streets. Eating al fresco in South Beach. Even spotted using a cashpoint – either odd or fitting for a man who earlier this year eclipsed $100 million in career prize money.

Djokovic is most prominent, though, on the stadium court. The Djokovic thumbnail: This is a player who wins by not losing, who excels in unsexy gerunds like returning and defending and neutralising and outlasting. He doesn’t get sufficient credit for power, aggression and risk tolerance. He also doesn’t get sufficient credit for the way he carries himself. Asked earlier this year about his superiority, he says, “I don’t want to allow myself to be in that frame of mind. The person who becomes too arrogant or thinks he’s a higher being or better than everybody else? You can get a big slap from karma very soon. And I don’t want that.”

The server has to factor in a kaleidoscope of different scenarios when attempting to hold serve in a match. The point, game and set scores are constantly in motion, as are the variety of serve strategies such as location, power and spin.

This week’s Infosys ATP Beyond The Numbers analysis focuses on five specific serving scenarios for the Top 10 players from the 2016 season, uncovering exactly where they rise to the occasion.

The five serve scenarios:

1. Overall win percentage.

2. Serving with new balls.

3. Holding serve immediately after breaking.

4. Serving for the set.

5. Serving for the match.

1. Overall Win Percentage: Top 10 Average = 86%

The Top 10 averaged holding serve 86 per cent of the time in 2016, with Milos Raonic leading the charge at 90 per cent, while Rafael Nadal was the lowest of the group at 81 per cent. Interestingly, Novak Djokovic is the only player on the list who boasts his highest winning percentage of the five specific scenarios in this overall, generic category.

Percentage of Holding Serve in Five Scenarios For The Top 10 In 2016

2. Serving With New Balls: Top 10 Average = 85%

It turns out that serving with new balls does not offer the Top 10 any advantage at all. In fact, their holding percentage dropped from 86 per cent to 85 per cent when they served with new balls. Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka exactly mirrored the one per cent drop in performance, while Marin Cilic dropped a hefty five percentage points, from 88 per cent to 83 per cent. Frenchman Gael Monfils went the other way, jumping five percentage points, from 84 per cent to 89 per cent.

3. Holding After Breaking Serve: Top 10 Average = 87%

The Top 10 rose one percentage point above normal following a break of serve, with Raonic and Wawrinka both leaping five percentage points. These two players really capitalised on breaking serve, reminding us of the old tennis saying that a break is not a break until you hold in the very next game.

4. Serving For The Set: Top 10 Average = 89%

Former World No. 1 Roger Federer led the charge in 2016 in this category, holding serve 100 per cent of the time when serving for the set. It was the only perfect mark scored by any Top 10 player in any of the five categories. Kei Nishikori also enjoyed great success here, posting an eight percentage-point jump from his regular holding percentage of 84 per cent, up to 92 per cent.

5. Serving For The Match: Top 10 Average = 89%

This is where Dominic Thiem found his mojo, jumping nine percentage points from his season average, moving from 83 per cent to 92 per cent. Only Monfils (97 per cent) and Federer (94 per cent) posted higher numbers serving it out than the 23-year-old Austrian.

Holding serve brings many moving parts to the table, and we can clearly see that the elite players seize their opportunities in a variety of different situations.

Kei Nishikori can fill a stadium without even playing a match. Anyone who had imagined that the Japanese public’s love and hysteria for Nishikori couldn’t possibly become any more intense – that peak-Kei had already been established – was made to reconsider during this season’s Tokyo tournament. That was when one of his practice sessions drew an audience of more than 9,000.

That figure even astounded some of the tournament’s organisers (who have seen some hysteria in their time, having previously not publicised his training schedule for fear of a crush). It would seem we have reached a new level of intensity in the relationship between Nishikori and his public – you suspect that crowds will now gather in Tokyo if all he is doing is tidying his drink bottles, or tying and retying his shoelaces. And you think it’s going to stop here? Already the most celebrated Asian player in history, and someone who can’t go anywhere in Japan without some “craziness”, Nishikori seemingly still has some way to travel when it comes to his fame and celebrity.

Why, winning this week’s Barclays ATP Worlds Tour Finals, which would be the most significant title of his tennis life, would only add to his standing in Japan, where he will be one of the faces of the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo (which will only mean more billboards, magazine covers, television commercials and social media buzz). There are dozens of Japanese journalists in Greenwich who are covering every move that Nishikori makes, on and off this indoor hard court: Whatever happens in London will captivate millions in Tokyo and beyond, especially in Shimane, where he was born.

It’s sometimes said that Andy Murray has more pressure loaded on to his shoulders, and into his racquet bag, than any other truly elite player on the ATP World Tour. After all, he’s the only one who is the prime focus at a home Grand Slam, with Wimbledon such a stressful experience for him that during the run-in he often breaks out in mouth ulcers.

But, for all that, it’s a moot point whether it’s Murray or Nishikori who has to deal with the greatest scrutiny and expectation from his nation. Imagine if Murray stumbled through his opening round at Wimbledon, and then retired from his second match because of injury, and you can appreciate the levels of despair and disappointment in Tokyo last month as that’s how Nishikori’s tournament played out. Like Murray, Nishikori’s development as a tennis player has included learning to be comfortable as a public figure. No wonder, then, that Nishikori bases himself in Florida – where he can stroll the streets without a disguise – to protect himself from the madness: “It’s difficult in Tokyo – I have to wear sunglasses, a hat, a mask, everything.”

According to his coach Michael Chang, Nishikori is naturally “on the shy, quiet side – although he does become a bit more talkative around his Japanese friends”. “For the most part, I just tell Kei that dealing with the pressure is just part of the territory for being one of the best in the world,” says Chang. “You need to find a balance in your life and to keep things in perspective. You have to ask yourself how important it is what everyone else is saying about you. And, more importantly, you have to ask yourself how much pressure you’re putting on yourself, and whether that’s the right thing to be doing.”

Nishikori’s fame grew quickly in 2014 when he became the first Asian man to appear in a Grand Slam singles final (he was the runner-up to Croatia’s Marin Cilic at that year’s US Open) and then the first Asian man to play singles at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals. Impressing as a debutant at The O2, he made the last four that year, with his semi-final watched by 10 million people in Japan. He qualified once again last November, though on that occasion he didn’t make it out of his group.

The only Japanese in history to be ranked in the Top 10 in the Emirates ATP Rankings, he has played some fine tennis this season, which brought him the title in Memphis for a fourth successive year, as well as runner-up finishes at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 events in Miami and Toronto and appearances in the finals of the ATP World Tour 500 events in Barcelona and Basel, plus a bronze medal at the Rio Olympics and a victory over Murray in the quarter-finals of the US Open (and that was when the Briton was on the best run of his career, after winning Wimbledon and the Olympics). With every point, game, set and match that Nishikori wins, his followers grow ever more committed.

Living in the United States allows Nishikori to focus on his training (with sessions that don’t attract thousands). As he has said, “nobody cares about me there in Florida… If I stayed in Japan, I think I would just go crazy. By living in the United States, I can concentrate on my tennis and I can practise and play all day, and that’s something you have to do. If I was living in Japan, there would be lots of things that I wouldn’t be able to do.

“You have to keep on training hard and not allow yourself to be distracted, and to remind yourself you’re working hard because you’re chasing a dream. You also have to remember that you’re playing for yourself and not for anyone else – that helps you to deal with the pressures.”