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Federer, Djokovic to fight for title at ATP World Tour Finals

Federer now goes on to face Novak Djokovic for the second time this week after beating the world No 1 in straight sets on Tuesday. He’ll battle Roger Federer in Sunday’s final.

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He seemed, in short, to have Nadal on a piece of string, and broke a second time to take the match, 6-3, after just an hour and 19 minutes. The tussle was nothing like last year’s semifinal, when the record six-time tournament victor saved four match points to progress.

Nadal was on his bike last night after being soundly beaten by Djokovic, whose victory was even more convincing than the scoreline might have indicated.

Federer’s been playing well this week, but I still like the court and the conditions for Novak here.

“I’ve had a terrific career and I’m very proud obviously with my team to be able to achieve what I have achieved in the last 10 years of professional tennis, but I still feel like I want to do more and I can do more”.

Murray said: “I made too many errors”. He’s winning by one match.

Federer and Nole have combined to win each of the past five ATP World Tour Finals, with Djokovic taking the past three. Federer now leads 22-21.

Castle told Press Association Sport: “You might say he hasn’t always played at his best here, although the match against Nadal was unbelievable”.

“Everything”, Rafa said immediately. If I look at the match (against Nadal), I think he was a little bit flat. When somebody’s doing this, the only thing I can do is congratulate him and just wish him not the best of luck for the next year.

Federer earned a straight-sets win over Djokovic in the round-robin stage, 7-5 6-2, in one hour and 17 minutes. Subpar versus Federer this week – his 23-match winning streak was snapped – and doing enough to down Tomas Berdych on Thursday, he lifted his game Saturday. Why did he play that way? “I’d like to give myself credit for that, quite honestly”. I thought I did a nice job, didn’t mess up too many volleys [glorious Federer understatement: he won 24 of 32 visits to the net].

It does again depend on which Wawrinka shows up – This time previous year his confidence was low and he picked up steam throughout the tournament, and just as well because after Federer had to withdraw from the final after their epic semi-final, then all the pressure was on Wawrinka to get the Swiss off to a good start against France in the Davis Cup final.

“It took a lot of time”, Djokovic said, playing down the importance of such statistics.

They led 9-5 in the first-to-10 deciding tie-break and Australian Peers missed what appeared the simplest of forehands at 9-8 as their fruitful three-year partnership came to a heartbreaking end.

Strangely, Murray and Wawrinka have not played each other since 2013, when the Swiss won both their matches comfortably.

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There was a lot at stake for Murray as he simply had to beat Wawrinka to confirm his place in the semi-finals.

Djokovic and Federer