The first two players in the world ranking reached the final at the ATP World Tour Finals (this is the official name for the Masters tournament’s latest editions). Both of them were undefeated in the round robin, something you mustn’t take for granted in this tournament.
Rafa Nadal had to struggle for more than three hours to defeat Andy Murray in the semifinal, showing that he didn’t arrive at this final competition at his best. In fact he had to struggle to win his first match vs. Andy Roddick as well. On the other hand for Nadal this is the first final in this tournament as generally he arrived at the end of the season very tired and with various physical problems so he should be happy.
Instead Roger Federer (picture ©Squeaky Knees) won in two easy sets vs. Novak Djokovic, reaching the final losing no sets. Surely the Swiss wanted to conquer back the title, also to show that he can still win an important tournament. During the week he certainly showed he’s in shape and the work done to make his serve more efficient was fruitful.
Federer started the match trying to be aggressive, also coming to the net in the attempt to keep the rallies short. In the eighth game he broke Nadal serve and in the following game he conquered the set 6-3.
In the second set Nadal tried to react with deeper shots and in the fourth game he broke Federer serve. The Swiss tried to do something more but facing the Spaniard’s tougher shots he lost some brilliance and lost the set 3-6.
The third set had a close start but in the fourth game Federer took advantage of some of Nadal’s rare errors to break his serve. The Spaniard didn’t falter but in the third set Federer seemed to have the better measure with his shots and in the sixth game broke Nadal’s serve again to close the final set in the following game 6-1.
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For Roger Federer it’s a good way to end a season with some highs but also many lows, also because the recent highs are the result of some technical and tactical changes.
Obviously Rafael Nadal wanted to win this tournament as well but he keeps on making progress every year so he’ll surely have another chance next season.
Season 2010 is over – Davis Cup is a tournament on its own – and all the Grand Slam tournaments have been won by Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer again. If del Potro barely played because of his serious wrist injury Djokovic and Murray weren’t able to defeat the dominators of the last seasons in the most important tournaments.
Next season will be two weeks shorter: it’s still to be seen how they’ll handle the start of the ATP World Tour Finals right after the Paris Master 1000 tournament instad of one week later but that’s a topic that will be discussed during the next months.
