TENNIS ATP FINALS – Roger Federer has reached 70 wins in a season for the sixth time by defeating Kei Nishikori 6-3, 6-2. If Raonic wins one set tonight against Murray he will be qualified for the 12th ATP Finals semifinal in 13 appearances. From London, Paul Sassoon
For the sixth year in his career, Roger Federer has won 70 or more matches in a season. He accomplished this result at 33 years of age after beating Kei Nishikori in straight sets, “I think it’s a great number. I played only the big tournaments this year. Basically, again, I chased all the Masters 1000s, Grand Slams, so forth. It’s not easy to win matches there, as we know, because guys are always very good, margins are small. More importantly for me is getting closer to the thousand number. Not that it’s one I’ve ever wanted to reach, but it would obviously be cool to get there.”
Roger Federer won his second match at this year’s ATP Finals. Again he won his match in straight sets (the fifth straight set match in the tournament overall). In his first match he defeated Milos Raonic 6-1, 7-6, today he won 6-3, 6-2 against another ATP Finals debutant Kei Nishikori. As is always the case the O2 Arena was packed and the majority of the crowd was cheering for the Swiss, but there were many Japanese flags scattered around the stands. The Japanese fans, one group was sitting behind me, started in good spirits, but were quickly deflated by their favoured players difficulties.
The world number two broke serve for the first time in the fourth game of the match after he struggled in the initial games with his backhand. Nishikori had the first opportunity to break serve in the third game, but was thwarted by the Swiss with an ace. In the fifth and ninth games the Japanese player came within two points of the break but he failed to actually get to break point. Federer won the set 6-3 in thirty five minutes of play.
Between the first and second set Kei Nishikori received treatment to his right wrist, but the injury didn’t seem to impede him at first but after he held his serve to love in the opening game of the second set, he started to lose control of his forehand with increasing frequency. Also he struggled to return Federer’s first serve (87% of first serve points won in the second set). In the first match of his tournament, Federer started to fade in the second set and was forced to a tie-break by Raonic, in this match he didn’t and he broke serve in the third game of the second set and a second in the seventh game to seal his win. Before he could celebrate, the world number two had to save one final break point in the eighth game, he did it with the aid of his serve closing the match 6-3, 6-2 in 1 hour and 9 minutes.
So far in this event every match ended in straight sets and the Swiss player believes that this is due to the surface, “in my opinion, because the court plays somewhat slow, and the serve doesn’t have that much of an impact depending on you how back it up, your serve. I think it’s very much a game of movement and the baseline game. Whoever’s better from the baseline has the upper hand, then dominates. I think that’s why we’re seeing heavy scorelines, because it’s just hard to get out of hard to serve your way out of trouble. It’s almost not possible time and time again.”
The fans at the O2 Arena have been a bit short changed, the five matches so far have been quick and one-sided and all five lasted for a total of 6 hours and 6 minutes. It’s very little if you compare it to the 2012 Australian Open Final played by Djokovic and Nadal that lasted 5 hours and 53 minutes, and that was just one match. For a keen fan that has spent up to £360 for the six sessions, it has not been a good tournament. Of course it’s still early in the tournament and there is still time to match the 2009 record when 10 out of the 15 matches went to the final set, but so far the fans have not received value for money.
The US Open finalist explained the match in the press conference, “He took the important points, all the important points. Maybe he didn’t play maybe hundred percent, but all the tough points he played, you know, good serve, good points. He didn’t give me a chance to come back. Yeah, I think he did great that. Important points, he put all the efforts. Yeah, for me, I didn’t play really bad. But still, you know, I wasn’t really consistent everything, my serve, my strokes. I had a little bit of unforced errors. So that’s why I couldn’t, you know, stay there.”
Kei Nishikori later explained why he called for the trainer at the end of the first set, “(I) just had a little bit of soreness today. I mean, the tennis was okay. I was playing really solid from the baseline. Maybe serve wasn’t there, you know, today. But I have, you know, one more day, tomorrow, off. So try to come back, recovery well, and hopefully I can win next one.”
