When tennis players speak of their ambitions and hopes and goals, they say nothing. Nothing of note. Nothing worth ever thinking about again.

The broaching of this topic in the presence of any player is seemingly the universal signal amongst them to zip it and shut up. Only the most well-worn, universally spoken clichés will suffice. One match at a time. One foot in front of the other. The usual responses lifted straight from the PR handbook that guard against accusations of arrogance, big-headedness and the rest.

Apparently, somebody forgot to tell Kei Nishikori.

Who knew the contrarian would come in the form of this lithe and quiet Japanese star. Even in a year that has seen such stratospheric heights for him, the only audible sound coaxed out of him in 2014, aside from the squeaking of his footwork moving at quadruple the speed of regular human beings, has been  him calling for the trainer every other match with yet another new injury to report.

But when Kei Nishikori speaks, there is always a moment of shock at the disconnect from body to voice. It isn't light, fluffy, and timid. Rather, it booms into every corner of each room, multiple octaves deeper than expected. There's a real tempo to his speech too, the rhythmic assertion of someone who knows exactly what he wants to say.

So when a reporter, days before Nishikori's first ever steps into a crowded O2 Arena, asked him that same question spouted to so many others, the filter seemingly tacked on to the mouths of most players was nowhere to be seen. In its place was a breathless retort that quickly fell into a brilliant and revealing stream of consciousness, full of his hopes and his dreams and everything in between.

“I want to win the whole thing,” he started assertively.” But it will be a tough tournament. If I can play good tennis for five matches, I will have a chance to win the whole thing. I just need to believe in myself. Next year, I want to be top 5 all the time and maybe rise to No. 3 or No. 2. I hope to reach a Grand Slam final again and win one of the Masters 1000s next year.”

Andy Murray wouldn't dare argue with these lofty ambitions after the direction he was sent on Sunday as his face flickered from rage to grim frustration and back again. Nishikori didn't quite arrive in the full-blast supersonic mode he has showcased at times this year, but it was good enough as he incessantly flew into the sky to meet the ball at its highest point; snatching time away from his opponent, dictating the happenings in points, and straining every inch of his being to catch the ball before it dared to cross his baseline.

He fell down a break in the first set, then silently raged as he found his own break pegged back in the second set. But the raw intensity was never doused, and when it truly mattered, at 5-4 on Murray's serve in both sets, he roared into each game with screaming returns of serve and left with both games firmly under his wing.

This has been the biggest revelation of Nishikori's year. Not the magical hands that have always glistened or the forehand that now routinely dominates top players as it did on Sunday, not even his body shoring up just about enough to allow him to trudge through draws.

It's this mental strength:  this ability to rise to the occasion on the points that really matter, to not balk at the occasion or the opponent standing across the net, to brush away resurgent opponents like Murray as he roared back into the second set

Perhaps it has already been there for years, lying dormant during the period when Nishikori’s fitness simply didn't allow him to remain in tournaments long enough to regularly face the top players, but ready to show itself when the body allowed the mind to be. Nishikori would later agree that the Japanese culture of deferring to and respecting elders was a mental hurdle that he had to clear.

“After turning pro, I was feeling a lot of respect to everybody actually, especially top players.  Like first time I play Roger, I couldn't play anything because I respected him too much.  I wasn't going for win actually.  I was just playing tennis against my idol,   That was one of the problems I had,” he said.

“But after a couple years, I got mentally strong.  I have to be strong to beat them.  Maybe that's one of the reasons we Asian players have to be really strong.  You have to believe yourself.”

But he has cleared that hurdle now, and done so at an impressive height to stand as one of the mentally sturdiest players around.

Perhaps crucially, although most players in the top 10 and beyond would be content with such a trail-blazing year, he evidently isn't. He wants everything, he wants it all. And although in life you don't always get what you want, Kei Nishikori may well achieve exactly that.