Federer, whose play was artful and articulate in composition, won the league fixture 7-5, 6-2 in 77 minutes to power to the top of the Stan Smith group with two wins.
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Berdych will be searching for his first win at this year’s season-ending championship.
Nishikori is out of the competition following his defeat here and to Novak Djokovic earlier in the week.
However, the world No. 8 launched a remarkable comeback to win five consecutive games and force a decisive third set, thanks to a few exquisite forehand returns and powerful serving-which rattled the usually collected Federer into making a few incredible misses.
“He was able to dictate most of the points and he was hitting the ball harder than he was at the beginning of the match”, said Murray.
It was telling that Federer mentioned break points, as it was his success at the clutch moments that proved to be the decisive factor.
Federer perennially dazzles with his varied, attacking game but Nishikori is no slouch when it comes to entertaining fans, either.
But Federer is too much of a pro and respects the game too much to take his foot off the accelerator, especially when a large crowd is rooting for him, as was the case at London’s O2 Arena.
But, as would become a recurring theme, Nishikori rallied impressively.
Yet as suddenly as Nishikori had seized the advantage, he found it vanished just as quickly as Federer took advantage of a sloppy service game to break again. “Was a little bit lucky I made that shot”. His serve was also misfiring, with only 51% of his first serves going in during a patchy first set.
Djokovic beat Nishikori in his first match, and will face Berdych on Thursday for a spot in the semifinals. Federer held at love for a 5-4 lead and then broke Nishikori to close out the match. Federer saved his serve and the two battled to 4-4.
Such a hopeless situation galvanised Nishikori however, and as he began to hit more freely, Federer wobbled.
On Sunday, Federer beat Tomas Berdych, giving him a 2-0 record this week.
Things got worse for Federer in the next game as he produced surely one of the worst errors of his illustrious career.
Proof if ever it was needed that Federer truly has every shot in the book. “It was like the low 40s and in the second set like 35 per cent. That’s not good enough against someone as good as Rafa”.
With the score even at 3-3 in the third set, the sixth-seeded Berdych had his third break point of the match – after converting the previous two – but he put a backhand into the net after a long rally.
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Still Nishikori wouldn’t go away though, and again he fought back from 4-1 down to level at 4-4, as Federer continued to misfire with his serve. This time he wavered and Federer claimed victory with a powerful overhead and end Nishikori’s progress in the tournament.
