Andy Murray feels that consistency on court has given him an opportunity to overtake his long-time rival Novak Djokovic and become year-end world No 1.
The top-ranked Serb currently enjoys a 2,415 points lead, but the reigning Olympic and Wimbledon champion could take top spot before the ATP World Tour Finals in London next month.
Murray could gain 500 ranking points for winning the Erste Bank Open in Vienna this week, which would narrow the gap to the 12-time major winner to 1,915 points.
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The stars then gather for the final Masters 1000 event of the season in Paris next week and a combination of Djokovic falling at the semi-final stage along with more tournament success for Murray would cut the deficit to 875 points.
And Murray would become world No 1 when the points gained at last year's ATP World Tour Finals are wiped from the rankings, although he would need to better Djokovic's result in London where the winner would earn 1,500 points.
The 29-year-old is aware that he still needs to make improvements in his already meticulous game if he is to usurp Djokovic at the top of the rankings, but he is ready to give it his best shot.
"I was close, if not to finish number one a few years ago, around the US Open time. But to finish the year-end world number one would be my best chance," Murray told Sky Sports.
"Novak's still got a pretty big lead in terms of points and he plays extremely well on the indoor hardcourts and has played in London whereas I've struggled a little bit so I've got to make some improvements this year if I want to get close to doing that.
"If you talk about getting to number one, it's not about individual tournaments, it's about a 12-month period and obviously you want to be consistent and get to the latter stages of as many tournaments as possible, which I've done the last few months and obviously I will try and do over the next few events if it's possible.
"It's not about one event, it's about a total season of 17, 18 tournaments and whoever performs best over them will get there and right now that's obviously Novak but I'll try my best to finish as strong as I can."
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