Andy Murray is on a chase to do something he’s never done before.

Become #3 at the end of the year.  OK, when you’re in a culture that only values number 1, this may not seem like much, but when #1 is a guy having the season that hasn’t happened in 25 years and when #2 is a guy who is likely to go down as the second best player ever and has a good shot at #1 were it not for, well, the other guy having his best year ever, #3 is not that bad.

Murray’s desire to end as #3 is actually realistic.  Federer accumulated a ton of points at the end of 2010.  He won Stockholm, Basel, and the ATP World Tour Final.  He was a finalist at Shanghai.  He lost in the semis at Paris.  Federer is defending nearly twice as many points as Murray.  With Federer planning to skip Shanghai and not planning to return until Basel, he’ll drop the points he earned in Shanghai and Stockholm.  It will also be a challenge to defend the ATP World Tour Finals.  The difference between winning and losing in the semis is over 1000 points which is just short of the difference between Murray’s points and Federer.

Donald Young reached the finals in the best tournament of his life including an upset up Gael Monfils, a top ten player.  But that match was a long 3-setter.

Young’s success has hinged on an aggressive style of play using his forehand to hit hard shots inside out and inside in.  His backhand has improved as well.  Young looks to get to the net to finish off points, but has also increased his steadiness so he doesn’t make errors so early in a point.

Despite this, Young was out of the match quickly.  Murray hit perhaps his best tennis, hitting solid shots the entire day, getting back ball after ball and hitting hard shots when he needed to.  Perhaps his match against Simon got him grooved as Simon is the kind of player that makes you hit lots of balls, but isn’t so hard-hitting that you can’t get many balls back either.

Murray won the match in 46 minutes.  He was efficient in his win, making great passes, holding serve relatively easy in a Federer-like manner.  He’s hoping to play well next week in Japan as well.  Young will join Murray there but because his ranking wasn’t high enough before this tournament, he wasn’t able to head to Japan to play qualies.  Instead, he’ll play doubles and hope to get into the main draw in some later tournament.

Meanwhile, in Kuala Lumpur, Janko Tipsarevic was looking for his first tournament win having lost his previous four finals.  He’s the only player in the top 20 not to have won a tournament.  He won a close 6-4, 7-5 match to win his first title over wildcard, Marcos Baghdatis.

Next week, two ATP 500 events, the China Open and the Japan Open.  The China Open was dealt serious blows when Novak Djokovic said he couldn’t play.  That leaves Gael Monfils as the top seed.  Even without Djokovic, the China Open has Tsonga, Berdych, and Roddick playing, so they have a solid field.  Tokyo has the stronger field with Nadal returning back to ATP play.  He’ll be joined by Andy Murray who has historically played Beijing as well as number 5, David Ferrer, and Mardy Fish.