MOST participants at the ATP Tour finals regard them as the culmination of a year's work. For Andy Murray, though, they are merely the warm-up to the main event.

As much as the World No 2 would love to claim his maiden title in the showcase at the 02 in London next week he has made no secret of the fact that his thoughts are already turning to the Davis Cup final against Belgium which immediately follows it. If the 28-year-old is to prevail in the final hard court event of the season, he would surely be the first in history to have masterminded his title tilt on an indoor clay court at Queen's Club, specially-constructed to mimic the conditions he will find in the Flanders Expo Arena in Ghent.

Post-operation, Murray feels his back requires a week or more of adjustment before subjecting it to the additional torque of clay court play. Having complained of back spasms during his run to the Paris Masters final, perhaps it is only the obligation he feels to the British public and his friend and tournament director Chris Kermode which draws him to the 02 at all. But once he arrives, according to his former coach and SkySports commentator Mark Petchey, it won't take long before the competitive juices start flowing. This is a tournament which Murray has never won, and only 12 months previously he was being humbled 6-0, 6-1 by Roger Federer, only to answer the call to play an exhibition match against Novak Djokovic when the Swiss withdrew from the final.

"The priority is Davis Cup but absolutely no way is this a sideshow when he steps onto the court at the O2," said Petchey. "If you’re Andy Murray, you want to win that tournament once in your career. You know you’re capable of winning it and to be the best of the best at that tournament is a huge achievement, a great accolade.

“It’s not easy to do," he added. "It’s one tournament Rafa [Nadal] hasn’t won. Andy will want to win it - the complication comes with the fact that he’s hitting on clay and it’s not so much about the practice, it’s about the movement and how is that going to impact his preparation. That’s a bit of an unknown for everyone, including Andy.

“Trying to mix and match is going to be tricky. He’s not sure how it’s going to play out and he has to be really careful with his back. The problem is there but it is something his guys will manage and he’ll do the best he can. But I have no doubt he’s going out to win - he can’t be any other way. He wants to win every match he plays, bar none. It’s his DNA.”

Thursday's draw at the O2 could keep Murray apart from Federer, Nadal and Novak Djokovic but Petchey feels Murray will have revenge in mind. “He’ll want to erase it [the memory of the defeat to Federer]," added Petchey. "That was not a nice memory at the end of last season. It had been a very good six weeks to get himself there, but there was no question he was running on vapour by then. “

Murray, who disposed of Belgium's No 1 player David Goffin 6-0, 6-1 in Paris last week has been spending his down time practising with Aljaz Bedene, the Slovenian-born player who will be eligible to be Davis Cup captain Leon Smith's second singles selection in the event that he wins a hearing on November 17. Bedene, who has appeared in dead rubbers for Slovenia in the past, is comfortably Britain's No 2 singles player, but Smith may feel obligated to include the likes of James Ward, Dan Evans or Kyle Edmund, all of whom have been major contributors to his team's success in the past.

“It is a difficult one and I can see both sides of the argument," said Petchey. "If I were in the guys’ shoes (Evans, Ward etc), I’d be saying I’ve part of this journey and we want to finish it. But I can see Bedene’s point of view that he is now British, and him saying:’you’ve got to pick me on merit'. He’s our second best singles player by a long distance. That’s why the decision is incredibly difficult to make if Bedene gets approval to play. I don’t envy being in Leon’s shoes in some ways and I do understand the dilemma. But Leon has made some big calls and 98 percent of them have come off. What are you going to remember - Bedene playing or Britain winning the Davis Cup? My gut feeling is most people will remember Britain winning the Davis Cup, not the potential fall-out from Aljaz playing.”

Petchey was in Cambuslang yesterday coaching kids at St Brides Primary School on their new Rebowall, installed at a cost of approximately £3,000 after Joseph Logan, a promising 11-year-old tennis player from Cambuslang, wrote away to win one for his school in a competition. The story is made even more remarkable by the fact that the youngster spent time recently suffering from Crohn's disease. "The fact he wanted to do this for his friends, to give them somewhere to play, makes him a special person," said Petchey. "Novak played against a wall will bullet holes in it. Roddick used to go into his garage and hit against a net, saying he’d played five sets against Boris[Becker] at Wimbledon. We need to make tennis cost effective, as accessible and affordable as we can. So that we are not sitting here with the desert which is coming towards us rapidly when Andy stops playing."