Paris attacks hit Murray especially hard

Andy Murray survived a harrowing ordeal as a child.
2014 photo by Paul Bauman

   For Andy Murray, the terrorist attacks in Paris hit all too close to home.
   At 8 years old, Murray was present at his school in Dunblane, Scotland, when Thomas Hamilton fatally shot 16 children and a teacher and wounded 15 others in 1996. Hamilton, a local shopkeeper and former scout leader, then killed himself.
   Murray and his older brother, Jamie, were unharmed in the carnage. Jamie, a doubles standout on the pro tour, was 10 at the time.
   Combined with his parents' split when Andy was 10, is it any wonder that, although cooperative, he invariably seems morose in postmatch news conferences?
   In this week's ATP World Tour Finals in London, Andy Murray is seeded second in singles, and Jamie Murray is seeded fourth in doubles with John Peers of Australia. The top eight singles players and top eight doubles teams of the year qualified for the tournament.
   Andy Murray won the first of his 35 tour-level singles titles, fourth among active players and 17th since the Open era began in 1968, in San Jose.
   He said he has no second thoughts about playing in the Davis Cup final Nov. 27-29 in Ghent, Belgium. Several arrests have been made in Belgium in connection with the Paris rampage.
   "Everybody right now is concerned about things," Murray, 28, told reporters on Monday after beating seventh-seeded David Ferrer of Spain 6-4, 6-4 in the round-robin phase of the ATP Finals. "But I do think the best thing we can do is to live our normal lives, not change too much, because then the terrorists are the ones that are winning. We need to go out there and do what we always do.
   "That's all we can do. I don't want to live my life in fear each time I step on a tennis court."  
   Murray owns two Grand Slam singles titles. He broke through in the 2012 U.S. Open after losing his first four major finals and became the first British man in 77 years to win Wimbledon in 2013.

ATP WORLD TOUR FINALS
In London
Round-robin singles

   Andy Murray (2), Great Britain, def. David Ferrer (7), Spain, 6-4, 6-4.
   Rafael Nadal (5), Spain, def. Stan Wawrinka (4), Switzerland, 6-3, 6-2.

Round-robin doubles

   Jean-Julien Rojer, Netherlands, and Horia Tecau (2), Romania, def. Marcin Matkowski, Poland, and Nenad Zimonjic (7), Serbia, 6-2, 6-4.
   Ivan Dodig, Croatia, and Marcelo Melo (3), Brazil, def. Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut (6), France, 3-6, 7-6 (4) [10-7].