THE season ended in the bright glare of a thrashing under the lights of the O2 ...

Andy Murray now looks to the cheering sunshine of Oz to resume winning ways.

The 27-year-old ended a tough season with a hammering from Roger Federer in the ATP World Tour Finals in London. Now he seeks to build his game for the Australian Open in January.

The 6-0, 6-1 defeat to the 17-time grand slam winner was Murray's worst defeat since losing by the same score to Novak Djokovic seven years ago.

The defeat leaves both pain and a need to address the flaws in his game.

"To be honest I don't care what anyone else says about it, it's about how I deal with it," Murray said after a bruising defeat to an in-form Federer.

'I'm extremely disappointed and when I look back I'll still be disappointed. I put a lot of hard work into this year and it's been tough, it's been a hard year.

"But while I won't take positives from the match, by looking at it and using the disappointment, I can use it as motivation for next year."

Murray had to go on a late winning run to qualify as one of the top eight players in the world for the end-of-tour finals.

There is a temptation to suggest that the race to qualification left him short of fuel for the tournament. He was defeated by both Kei Nishikori and Federer, though he beat Milos Raonic.

"I'm happy to have made it here, yeah, but that doesn't change tonight," said Murray in the immediate aftermath of his crushing defeat.

"I like to compete, I'm a competitor, so to lose a match like that is always going to be hard to take no matter how tough a road it was to make it here."

He also hit back at criticism voiced by Greg Rusedski, the commentator who suggested Murray had gone back to his non-aggressive style since working with Amelie Mauresmo.

"I wouldn't say that's the case at all, but Greg has his opinions, and his job is to express those opinions on TV," he said.

"But in a match like today ... well, wow, what do you want me to do? The guy was half-volleying the ball inside the baseline, so you had no time to react."

He added: "The ball was coming off the middle of his racket on every single shot, so I'd have been interested to see how Greg would have approached it."

Murray said he was planning to take a few weeks off before being the best man at the wedding of his friend, Ross Hutchins, but said he would now be back on court to practise in preparation for the new season.

The sun of Melbourne may beckon, but Murray is not in holiday mood.