Djokovic, 28, bidding for a fourth successive title right here, will play both Roger Federer or Stan Wawrinka in Sunday’s final.
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He did not face a single break point and will play either Roger Federer or Stan Wawrinka in the final on Sunday.
He missed a routine shot when a chance opened up to make it 3-3 and Djokovic made him pay by breaking again to take the set.
Wawrinka, though, did manage to save one match point when serving at 5-2 down but it only delayed the inevitable as Federer kept his quest for a seventh ATP World Tour Finals title alive. First of all I’ll say how happy I am that could play today. However, the match was ultimately not about what Nadal couldn’t do, but what Djokovic could.
Federer goes into the final with a 22-21 lead in his head-to-head record against Djokovic, something he admits does have a bearing on the mindset heading into Sunday’s match. Federer is gunning for a record 7 title, while Djokovic is aiming for a 4 consecutive title. The result went the same way with Federer triumphing 7-5, 6-3, but this 70-minute encounter was all rather comfortable in the end for the 17-time Grand Slam champion.
Both players served really well in that round robin match and that’s key for Federer, who won 67 percent of the points on his second serve that day (as did Djokovic), but it was Federer winning nearly half of the points on Novak’s first serve that did as much damage.
He responded by making sure of his progress into the last four with a comfortable victory over Tomas Berdych and he was firing on all cylinders in his semi-final against Rafael Nadal yesterday afternoon, beating the Spaniard 6-3, 6-3. All these questions and more come to mind as we settled down to see if a resurgent Nadal would take any advantage of those rare little butterflies of Djokovic’s frailties.
The first task is to win one more match in London.
“He has the flawless game against my game”, said Wawrinka, the only man besides Djokovic to win a major this year.
As well as closing his press conference wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and looking forward (!) to seeing us all again, he also found the humour in his loss, saying: “He played just fantastic”.
“I think I was a few levels under him at the beginning of my career when I started playing professional tennis”.
It sets up the flawless climax to the season between two players with 27 grand slam titles between them.
On top of that, there was a bust-up – Wawrinka taking umbrage at what he saw as inappropriate words from Federer’s wife Mirka from the players’ box at a key point in the third set.
Djokovic has prevailed in 17 of his past 18 on this blue court – thanks, Roger – and is attempting to become the first player to win four straight ATP year-end crowns.
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Nadal missed the Tour Finals a year ago after appendicitis surgery, having missed three months of the season with a wrist injury following his loss to Nick Kyrgios at Wimbledon.
