He has the experience and the history in London, and although it has been four years since his last title, he has not lost to anyone other than Djokovic or Nadal (or an out-of-action Juan Martin del Potro) at the Tour Championships since 2009.
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After the match, Djokovic was presented with the trophy for finishing the year ranked No 1 in the world, for the fourth time.
He said: “For me it was quite simple”.
Wawrinka will not have to worry about trying to better that until at least the semi-finals.
It has been a remarkable year for the Serbian who was so close to winning all four Grand Slams, but he narrowly missed out on this achievement after losing the French Open final to Stanislas Wawrinka.
And once again, the big Czech man, playing in his sixth consecutive World Tour Finals, has enjoyed consistency of a very high level.
He has 78 wins from his 83 matches over the last 11 months in which he has collected majors at the Australian Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. He arrived, then, in confident mood. It’s the best eight players in the world. We played the same amount of matches here but I was dealing with a back problem from Saturday night until the Davis Cup.
Nishikori battled hard to get on the board in the fourth game but that was as good as it got as Djokovic, his game and his movement razor sharp, reeled off the next three.
Djokovic is undoubtedly Federer’s biggest challenger in this Group and perhaps even at the tournament overall this week.
Djokovic secured an early break in the first set and could have gone 4-0 up, but Nishikori stopped the rot, saving break point with a lovely passing shot down the line before holding serve. It’s not a tournament, it’s just a two or three-day thing, and I think it’s just important that mentally you’re ready for it. He would eventually hold for his only game of the set at 3-1.
They nearly blew a 4-1 lead in the second set before finding their rhythm, but Murray and Peers were too precise and disciplined for them in the championship tie-break.
“Clearly it was not the best start”, said Federer who hit 20 aces in the win.
“It was one of the worst starts I’ve had in years”, Federer told reporters. So it was rough. But thankfully I was able to pick it up. I mean, the surface does play slow here. Reflecting back on those memories of course gives me more confidence, more comfort coming into every single match. My team definitely plays a part in this. Djokovic controlled his own service games so easily, and when returning, he kept stepping into the court and finding his chances. Whatever happened in the past is behind me and whatever is in the future, I don’t know what’s going to happen.
Murray failed to survive the round-robin stage a year ago when he was demolished by Federer.
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How could it fail?
