Andy Murray became the first British man ever to become world No2, with a cunningly crafted but ultimately rather edgy victory over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga which carried him to the final of the Canada Masters for the first time.

Murray also became the first man in more than four years other than Roger Federer or Rafa Nadal to hold that ranking, and he did it with a 6-4, 7-6 victory in which the world No7 from France twice had set point to take an increasingly tense match to a third set. At that stage Murray had to thank one or two moments of madness from Tsonga, counter-balancing much brilliance from him, too. Overall, though, the Scot just about deserved his win for his intelligence, patience, fitness and tactical variety.

"It's obviously special to get past Rafa ... though unfortunately Rafa has had an injury and not been able to play in the last few months," Murray said. "But I played well. I will try and justify the No2 ranking which is incredibly difficult."

The advantage of the ranking is not just one of greater status. Provided Murray does not lose the ranking between now and the end of the Cincinnati tournament next week he will be seeded second at the US Open, reducing the chances of having to beat both Nadal and Federer to win the title.

It would have been easy to have become distracted by the significance of this. The day before he had said: "I've been asked about it a lot, so it's impossible not to think about it a little bit, but when I'm playing my match it's the furthest thing from my mind. The only thing I am thinking about is winning and nothing to do with rankings or anything."

Mostly that appeared to be so, despite a frantic finish, in which the crowd screamed and Murray betrayed his edginess with one or two fraught gestures. The first set was a curious mixture of stunning rallies, strange mistakes, a good lead lost and an advantage snatched back at the last moment. That was because of the staccato-inducing mixture of the hit‑or-bust style favoured by Tsonga and the sprat-to-catch-a-mackerel tactics used by Murray.

These involved rolling the ball in slowly to frustrate Tsonga in his most testosterone-charged moments, playing the ball to a three-quarters length to tempt him unwisely in, switching the direction of his attacks suddenly to disrupt his opponent's rhythm, and using slice frequently to drag groundstroking errors from Tsonga. It did not always work. Sometimes Murray allowed too much time and room for a talented hitter to wind up and launch something big. But it did get him an early lead and it went some way towards undermining Tsonga mentally.

Murray floated and sliced, Tsonga volleyed one and then drove one into the net, and Murray was away with an early break – 3-1, then 4-1 and 5-2 as he consolidated the break twice.

Tsonga then got 12,000 throats roaring with some moments of sublime brilliance, and prevented Murray from closing out the set, only to lose his service game for the second time as Murray coaxed and chivvied him into mistakes.

That determined Tsonga to be more disciplined in the second set. He serve-volleyed well, but also rolled the ball and rallied a bit more when he had to. He did though missed a chance to break for 5-3 – but by then the match had became physically draining. And so the score zig-zagged on, with serve, till six-all. Tsonga got the first mini-break, advanced to 4-2 with the decibels of support rising, and might have got to 5-2 had he not tried to make his net approach with a drop shot.

That gave Murray a break back, though he still had to save set points on his serve, at 5-6 and 7-8. Tsonga saved one match point with an outrageous serve/drop-volley/lob-volley combo, but when he tried to save a second with another serve-volley Murray jump-drove the ball down at his feet and forced the volleying error. But there was no extravagant celebration. He has a title to win tomorrow and next month's grand slam on which to focus his attentions.