Points won by each set: [ 36-29, 39-37 ]
Points won directly on serve:
34 % Murray – 21 of 61
22 % Dimitrov – 18 of 80

With that title, Murray [2] entered the best period of his tennis life – he’d won five straight titles & 28 matches in a row before he lost to Djokovic in Doha. In Beijing, he controlled the match from the beginning breaking Dimitrov’s first service game. In the 2nd set Dimitrov [20] trailed *2:4 & 3:5, but he broke back with the help of a 43-stroke rally and led 6:5 – Murray held at ‘love’ grabbing 11 out of the last 13 points of that meeting. “It’s been the most consistent year of my career, getting to the latter stages of most of the events I have played,” Murray told Sky Sports after the game. “It was a great week for me. Today’s match was a very high-level match. Grigor fought right to the end and made it extremely tough to finish it in two sets.”

Murray’s route to his 40th title:
1 Andreas Seppi 6-2, 7-5
2 Andrey Kuznetsov 6-2, 6-1
Q Kyle Edmund 7-6(9), 6-2
S David Ferrer 6-2, 6-3
W Grigor Dimitrov 6-4, 7-6(2)

Serve & volley: Murray 0/1, Dimitrov 0/1

# Comparison of their two finals:
Brisbane ’13: Murray d. Dimitrov 7-6, 6-4… 1 hour 31 minutes… Total points: 73-62
Beijing ’16: Murray d. Dimitrov 6-4, 7-6… 1 hour 58 minutes… Total points: 75-66