ANDY Murray said last night that he plans to stay at the top of the world rankings as long as possible after confirming his status as the Christmas No 1 of world tennis with his maiden ATP World Tour Finals title. The Scot consolidated his hold on top spot in the rankings with a 6-3, 6-4 win against Novak Djokovic, silencing those detractors who said he could not claim supremacy in terms of the sport until he had defeated the Serb. This was the Scot's ninth title of the season and confirmed with his first meeting against his Serbian nemesis since the French Open final in June. January's Australian Open will be the first Grand Slam which he will enter as No 1 seed.

"It's taken a huge effort the last five, six months to get there so I would obviously like to stay there," he said. "I'm aware that's going to be extremely difficult because I had a great year this year. I only managed to do it by one match. To repeat that again next year is going to be extremely difficult. But now that I've got there, I obviously would be motivated to try and stay in that position.

"But the majors are what gets me working hard and what really, really motivates me," he added. "When I go away in December to train, I'm training with the Australian Open in mind. Because of the best-of-five-set matches, they're the ones you have to really put in the extra work for and the extra training for."

Unlike his Wimbledon triumph earlier this year, which he celebrated with a boozy night in London's West End, Murray was taking it easy last night. But he had much to celebrate last night, for a big win against his opponent which he feels could give him a mental edge going into 2017. He had previously lost 24 of the 34 previous meetings between the pair, even if this was the first ever meeting where Murray had been the higher ranked player.

"No party tonight," said Murray. "I think we'll go out for dinner tomorrow night. I haven't been home for the last few nights. I've been staying in the hotel. So we're going to go home. But I think tomorrow with the team, we'll definitely go out for dinner, then see afterwards what happens.

"It doesn't really matter what anyone else says," he added. "It's kind of how you feel inside. But this one was more important for me because obviously it's a match-up that over the last couple of years I lost a lot of the big matches against him. This one was a big match and I managed to get over the line, even though it was tough at the end. Mentally that will give me a boost going into next year. I'm also happy for my team, because they put a lot of work into getting me ready for these matches. I've lost a lot of them over the years. It's nice and I'm happy for them that I managed to win a big one like this."

Rather than the added confidence gained from his world ranking, Murray felt it was the amount of matches he had won recently which made the difference. "It's not so much the ranking," he said. "But maybe in the important moments I was just a little bit more solid, and maybe had that extra little bit of confidence, which in the past when we played each other maybe he's had."