They were measuring up the best players in the men’s game yesterday for the outfits — the details of which are secret — that they will be wearing when unveiled in London next week as the pride of their sport.

Andy Murray’s second experience of this elevated status comes as he contemplates a year in which he filled out as a high-class performer. Of course, nothing would give him greater pleasure than to win the eight-man Barclays ATP World Tour Finals at the O2 arena in southeast London, starting a week on Sunday. Although he said that “there’s no pressure, no expectations”, his approach to the roundrobin match he did not have to win against Roger Federer in the equivalent finale in Shanghai last year suggests that such colourless appraisal should be treated with a pinch of salt.

The fourth-day card for the BNP Paribas Masters in Paris today renders what happened on the first three largely window dressing. Federer, Murray, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Juan Martín del Potro take to the quickened floor of the Palais Omnisports to fine-tune their games with 13 days of the tour to go. There is a sense of wanting to get on with it while waiting for the year to end.

Federer and Murray are the best rested, Nadal’s eagerness requires a cork to contain it, Djokovic is characteristically on edge and Del Potro is looking to justify his breakthrough success at the US Open two months ago.

It was asked of the British No 1 whether he used any part of the six weeks he has spent resting his injured wrist to evaluate where he was with his game. The motives for the line of inquiry were entirely positive.

“From my point of view and from the guys I’ve worked with, everyone tries to find something wrong with my game or why I haven’t won a grand slam or haven’t been No 1 in the world or whatever it is that I need to do to prove I’m a great player,” Murray, who won his comeback event in Valencia on Sunday, said.

“I don’t know what that is, but I got to No 2 this year, which I think is good; I improved my results at Wimbledon and at the French Open; won more tournaments [six] than last year. It’s been a good year and I don’t feel there’s a whole lot I need to change in my game, regardless of what some people think, and I think I’m close to winning a grand slam and I’ll give it my best shot to do that next year.

“I don’t think there’s a huge amount that I need to work on. You become better the more matches you play, the physically fitter you get — I feel like I’m a lot better player now even than I was at the beginning of this year, just from playing matches, getting used to winning more and having that consistency week in, week out.

“Throughout the whole season, there’s not been one part of it that I could say, ‘That was a big letdown; I didn’t play well there; I had a couple of bad months there.’ It’s been pretty solid the whole way through, so no complaints.”

We had none. He has a minimum of four matches left to play this year — one here and three in the round-robin at the O2 — and it would not be a surprise if he stars in at least twice that number. He beat James Blake, whom he plays in the second round in Paris today, in the final of the AEGON Championships at Queen’s Club in June, but knows that since teaming up with Kelly Jones, the American’s first change of coach since he was a junior, Blake has found some late-season zest.

The thought of missing out on the London gravy train is affecting players in different ways. Nikolay Davydenko, of Russia, in seventh spot, lost three games in his second-round match with Benjamin Becker, of Germany, and looks unstoppable, but Fernando Verdasco, the Spaniard in eighth, was a bundle of nerves in edging Andreas Seppi, of Italy, 6-7, 6-4, 6-4.

There was a rumour last night that Andy Roddick, invalided out of the Shanghai Masters last month with a knee injury, may have to withdraw from London, but the tournament organisers insisted that the Wimbledon runner-up will definitely travel.

To sightsee? We shall see.