When tourists step into a pod of the London Eye it is for the views over the city, but Andy Murray was at the Ferris wheel this morning to discover that he had been drawn in Group A with Roger Federer, Juan Martin del Potro and Fernando Verdasco for the year-end tournament which begins at the O2 Arena on Sunday afternoon.
The eventual champion, provided he goes undefeated in the round-robin stages, could earn almost £1 million for just over a week’s tennis.
Murray leads the respective head-to-head records against all three of his group opponents.
It is the second year in succession that Murray and Federer have been put together in the same group at the lucrative, eight-man event, as last season, when the tournament was held in Shanghai suburbs, the Scot beat the Swiss to prevent him from qualifying for the semi-finals.
Though Federer has only won three of his nine career meetings with Murray, he has suggested that he controls the outcome of their matches, as he is the one who plays a more aggressive brand of tennis - “it’s up to me whether I win or lose, not up to him”.
The world No 1 won his last match against Murray, in Cincinnati this summer.
At the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, Federer and Murray will each be attempting to score their second title in London this season, as Federer was the Wimbledon champion in July and Murray won the warm-up tournament at Queen’s Club in June. Federer could win his fifth end-of-year title.
Murray, a beaten semi-finalist in Shanghai last year on his first appearance at a season-ending tournament, has four victories from his five matches against Del Potro, this season’s US Open champion and the world No 5.
Since beating Federer in the New York final in September, Del Potro has struggled with an abdominal injury, and retired from matches at the Masters tournaments in Shanghai and Paris.
This will be Del Potro’s second end-of-year tournament - he failed to qualify from his group in Shanghai last season. There is a chance that the South American could finish the year above Murray, bumping the Briton outside the top four.
After eight tour meetings with Verdasco, Murray has lost just once - in the fourth round of this year’s Australian Open.
They met recently, in the semi-finals of the Valencia tournament, when Murray beat the world No 8 in three sets. Verdasco will be making his first appearance at the year-end tournament.
Rafael Nadal, the Australian Open champion from Majorca, heads Group B, which is completed by defending champion Novak Djokovic, of Serbia, the Russian Nikolay Davydenko, and Sweden’s Robin Soderling, who will feature at this event for the first time after American Andy Roddick withdrew because of a knee injury.
The group matches will be played from Sunday to Friday, with the semi-finals to be played on Saturday, and the final on the second Sunday.
Singles round robin groups
Group A
(1) Roger Federer
(4) Andy Murray
(5) Juan Martin del Potro
(7) Fernando Verdasco
Group B
(2) Rafael Nadal
(3) Novak Djokovic
(6) Nikolay Davydenko
(8) Robin Soderling
Doubles Round Robin Groups
Group A
(1) Daniel Nestor/Nenad Zimonjic
(3) Mahesh Bhupathi/Mark Knowles
(5) Frantisek Cermak/Michal Mertinak
(7) Max Mirnyi/Andy Ram
Group B
(2) Bob Bryan/Mike Bryan
(4) Lukas Dlouhy/Leander Paes
(6) Lukasz Kubot/Oliver Marach
(8) Mariusz Fyrstenberg/Marcin Matkowski
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