Andy Murray hailed his hectic end-of-season schedule

The Scot had looked in serious jeopardy of missing out on a spot at the season-ending ATP Tour Finals after a dismal run after elimination at the Wimbledon quarter-finals.

After resting up in an attempt to gain fitness into the US Open, a spirited last-eight loss to Novak Djokovic appeared to stir something in Murray and the past month has seen the British number one back to approaching his best.

Titles in Shenzhen, Vienna and Valencia have put Murray all-but in the O2 Arena showpiece next month - he will guarantee a spot with two wins at this week's Paris Masters.

"It's been a long few weeks but it's been very beneficial for me," he said.

"I've gained a lot of confidence in my body again from playing this many matches and also winning a lot of tough, long, close matches, especially in the finals being match points down and the other [David] Ferrer was serving for the match [in Vienna] as well.

"So I've been fighting extremely hard in the matches and I've got some good results so it's been nice.

"Right now I'm number five in the race [to London], and it's supposed to have been a terrible year for me, so I'm happy with that.

"I've come back well after a tough surgery and there's still hopefully a couple of tournaments left between now and the end of the year where I can try to make more improvements.

"But if not, I'm still very happy, especially with the last few weeks, but also a lot of the tennis I've played since the French Open.

"It has been good and I've been making improvements in my game. I feel much better about myself just now and hopefully next year will be a good one."