Djokovic will next play Wawrinka, who sent Nadal packing 7-6 (10/8), 7-6 (9/7), the Swiss having defeated him the last time the two men met in Paris in the French Open final in June.
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World number one Djokovic stayed on course to become the first player to win six ATP Masters 1000 titles in a season by overpowering Wawrinka in the deciding set to triumph 6-3 3-6 6-0.
“Since the beginning of past year my results against him and Roger haven’t been good enough”, said Murray, who will attempt to lead Britain to the Davis Cup title against Belgium later this month.
Wawrinka overcame an early break of serve and saved two set points in each tiebreaker to beat seventh-seeded Rafael Nadal 7-6 (10-8), 7-6 (9-7) for only the third time in their 16 career meetings – although all of those wins have come in the past four matches.
Wawrinka, meanwhile, has also had the best season to date, following his victory at the French Open, which was the first Grand Slam title of his career.
“So that kind of was a positive to that, knowing that I can break him most of the time”.
“I definitely didn’t want to go into the third set”. Suddenly he was up a break again and he held onto the advantage to claim a 6-2, 6-4 win in 1hr 32mins. “I need to think about why that is and what I can do to turn it around”.
The American bombarded Federer with a total of 27 aces during the match to secure a 7-6, 3-6, 7-6 win. I will always give Novak an edge on a medium to slow hard court against Murray, especially in controlled indoor conditions.
“I thought that was a pretty good match apart from a few periods when I was making errors”.
America’s Madison Keys won the tournament’s final round-robin group match 6-3, 6-2 against China’s number one, wildcard Zheng Saisai, with neither player capable of reaching the semis. Murray has already qualified for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, and if he chose to omit that event from his schedule, he could face a big fine. “The crowd was behind him and it was ideal preparation for the Davis Cup, in an atmosphere like that”. “If I can do that it will be the highest I’ve ever finished so that’s a positive”.
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Murray, who has now achieved his best match record in a single season with a 67-11 mark, made the decisive break in the eighth game then served out the match at love. Berdych earned set points in the 12th game of the first set but the Serb quickly wiggled out of that scenario by executing a ideal one-two combo to put away a forehand victor.
