There were two minor embarrassments jostling for attention in the dead singles rubber between Novak Djokovic and his unfortunate (yet extremely lucky) opponent, David Goffin, on day five at the Barclay’s ATP World Tour Finals.

The score was a bit shabby, for a start: 6-1, 6-2 in 69 minutes to Djokovic – about a third of the epic Andy Murray and Kei Nishikori put on the day before. But how lucky was the Belgian? Just for stepping in at the last minute in place of Gaël Monfils – who withdrew on Wednesday with sore ribs after two defeats – Goffin pocketed £144,000, of which he had been guaranteed £80,000 anyway for standing by. Not bad for a pleasant week idling by the Thames at the end of a tough season.

To be fair to both players, they did no more nor less than was expected of them. Djokovic is back to cruising mode after a particularly rough wind-down to his autumn, and Goffin was here as a late sub on merit.

Andy Murray battles past Kei Nishikori to stay on course at ATP finals Read more

The match itself was an altogether strange affair, though, given -Djokovic had already qualified for the semi-finals and Monfils had left the building, thus robbing the fixture of tournament significance. All that was on the line was were 200 ranking points for the winner – which kept Djokovic leap-frogging Andy Murray at the top of the table – but the Serb was always going to finish first in his round-robin group regardless of the result. The first set was bizarre. Djokovic hit four double faults, got a time-warning when serving at 4-1, hit more unforced errors (13 to 11) than Goffin and fewer winners (3-5) … yet won the set 6-1. He did score 10 more points, 33-23, and generally played well, but that is the glorious quirkiness of tennis and its scoring system.

The second did not lift the mood much, although Djokovic got his serve clicking and Goffin did not, returning a miserable 39% at first attempt. As invariably happens, he found a little something towards the end, holding serve in the seventh game and winning the ironic approval of the audience who seemed as pleased to be out of the howling wind whipping the leaves outside. With a neat tapped volley that kissed the line, Djokovic brought an end to a match that had a slew of fine shots here and there but had the cutting edge of a primary school cake-making competition.

Djokovic said of his late charge at Murray’s No1 ranking: “I always try to the last drop of energy, whatever is left in my body, to perform as well as I can and finish off the season in the best possible way.”

He is certainly doing that.

In the final singles, Milos Raonic beat Domini Thiem 7-6 (7-5), 6-3 to reach the semi-finals. If Murray beats Wawrinka on Friday, he will play Raonic; if he loses, he plays Djokovic. Either way, he has a serious challenge to get over the line.