Age and era make Andy Murray's ascent to No.1 truly remarkable

— -- From the Scottish lowlands to the pinnacle of world tennis is quite some trip -- one involving lots of planes, trains and automobiles, and that's even before you get to the miles on the court and on the dreaded VersaClimber.

Or, to be a little more precise, it's going from the artificial grass courts of Dunblane to becoming the first British man to hold the No. 1 singles ranking.

But Andy Murray's Scottishness, or Britishness, isn't even the most interesting part of his elevation in status.

What's so compelling about Murray transformation into the alpha-dog of the courts -- from Monday morning he will officially be the best tennis player on the planet -- is the era in which he has accomplished it.

Also marvel at the stage at which he has achieved this feat, just six months before he turns 30, a birthday which not so along was supposed to signal the beginning of end for a tennis player.

For both those reasons -- the company he has been keeping, and becoming the oldest first-time No. 1 in his own lifetime -- Murray's ascent to top of the rankings should be seen as the ultimate act of perseverance. Murray is the 26th man to have held this office, but have any of the previous 25 toiled like he has?

There couldn't have been a less fitting way for Murray to reach the top -- without having to swing a racket after Milos Raonic's withdrawal from their semifinal at the Paris Masters.

Clearly, anyone who elevates himself to the No. 1 ranking has achieved something extraordinary, and that even applies to those who have done so during a thin era, of which there have been a few.

So to have propelled himself to the top in the same age as Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal makes Murray's achievement all the greater, even if Federer and Nadal are plainly still no longer at the peaks of their playing powers.

Such has been the competition from that trio over the years, many others would have wilted or folded along the way. But Murray hasn't.

Remember some sniffed that there wasn't really a Big Four in tennis, only a Big Three and a Half. Well, you don't hear much from them now after the year Murray's had -- winning Wimbledon for the second time, retaining his Olympic title and putting himself at the top of the tennis tree.

So Murray, at the age of 29 and a half, becomes the oldest first-time No. 1 since Australia's John Newcombe held the position in 1974. Murray might say that this promotion has come a little earlier than expected -- he had thought his best chance would be in February or March next year when he won't have many points to defend -- but his rise has hardly been fast-tracked. For years, Federer, Nadal and Djokovic have blocked his path. Well, for no longer.

Nothing has come easily to Murray. Not winning Grand Slam titles, with a run of defeats in finals before he scored his first. And not making the jump from No. 2 in the rankings to No. 1. Consider that Murray was just 22 years old when he first held the No. 2 ranking. Has he been deterred? Hardly. Instead he has shown even greater levels of resilience and perseverance, and displayed even larger appetites for self-improvement and hard toil.

Just to make this moment even more special for Murray, this completes a family double after his older brother held the doubles world No. 1 ranking earlier in the year. This hasn't happened before, with one brother achieving the top doubles ranking and the other going all the way to the summit in singles.