LONDON -- It's over to Belgium and the Davis Cup final for Andy Murray after crashing out of the World Tour Finals in the group stage for a second successive year.
Murray was beaten 7-6(4), 6-4 in an hour and 34 minutes by Stan Wawrinka, who sets up a semifinal meeting with Roger Federer.
In 2014, a fatigued Murray was thrashed for the loss of just one game by Roger Federer. He put up more of a fight here, losing a tight first set on a tie-break -- which he had led 4-2 -- before going down two breaks in the second. The Scot managed to claw one back and held two more break points at 5-4 down, but Wawrinka held his nerve to close out he win.
There was perhaps an understandable preoccupation with Davis Cup duty, but Murray denied his mind had been elsewhere.
"I didn't find it difficult not thinking about the Davis Cup Final, to be honest," he said. "The only positive for me this week is I've come away from it injury-free. Now I have a couple more days to get ready for Belgium.
"Right now I'm not so much concerned about next week. I'm just disappointed that I lost the last two matches."
The Scot spent most of the build-up to this tournament practising on clay, ahead of next week's clash against Belgium in Ghent, as he aims to deliver Great Britain's first final win since 1936.
As expected, Murray has lacked sharpness on this O2 Arena hard court throughout this week.
"It's not an excuse. I hit enough balls on hard the last five months," he said. "I felt like my timing would get better as the event went on, and it didn't actually, it got worse, which is strange. So that is nothing to do with not having enough time to prepare. Yeah, I don't think that's a valid reason.
"Way too many errors the last two matches. Everyone can make mistakes. It's just more on easy shots, cheap errors. Just something really for the most part of this year I haven't been doing.
"But this week and actually a lot of the time when I've played here on this court, I've felt the same way. I made too many mistakes. My timing wasn't there certainly the last few days. Maybe against David I had a little bit more time on the ball, whereas obviously Stan and Rafa hit the ball pretty big."
Curiously, Murray's players' box was empty, with his team later spotted by television cameras higher up in the O2 Arena. It was strange, given Murray had written in his BBC column on Friday that "at tough moments especially it can be a bit of a comfort blanket to look over at people you know when you're in front of a huge audience."
However, Murray said: "I just felt like sometimes when the box is extremely close to the court, I sometimes can find that a distraction. So I thought it would be better to have them sit a bit further away from the court. That was it."
Murray is now no longer guaranteed to finish the year as world No.2 -- Federer can leapfrog him by winning the tournament on Sunday. Whatever ranking he finishes with, it has still been Murray's most consistent year, the Scot ending 2015 with 69 wins, his best tally in a single season.