November 24,2009-Roger Federer captured the year-end world number one title with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 defeat of Andy Murray Tuesday at the ATP World tennis Tour Finals.
Even if number two Rafael Nadal were to win the tournament and Federer would not win another match this week, the Swiss champ cannot lose the number one ranking.
Federer looked like he was going to cruise at the beginning as he broke in the first game of the evening, but Murray broke right back a game later. The Scot took the opening set in 42 minutes, breaking Federer at love in the sixth game.
The number one seed came roaring back in the as he finally found control of his ground strokes to take the second set. In the third set Federer broke Murray for 2-1 and again for 4-1 he easily went on to a 2-0 group A record. There will one last round-robin for Federer to play Thursday.
"Andy was playing really well in that first set, I couldn't read his first serve and he made it very hard,” Federer said, "But I picked up my game and when he dropped a bit, I took advantage. It's given me real confidence for my next match."
In the other group A match, Juan Martin Del Potro sweated out a unsteady win over Fernando Verdasco 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (7-1) in a contest of over two and a half hours. Del Potro was up 5-2 in the final set when the Spaniard began a gutsy comeback to level the set but ran out of answers in the tie breaker.
“I have to play better than the US Open if I want to win. But it's a good chance to advance to semis,” said Del Potro of his next match with Federer. “I don't know what will happen.”
This is the fifth time Roger Federer has been the ATP World Tour Champion. Federer becomes just the second player in the history of the South African Airways ATP Rankings to regain the year-end No. 1 ranking.
Federer is also going after his fifth season ending tennis title this week at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals. He won successive titles in 2003-04 and then again claimed the crown in 2006-07.
Wednesday goes back to group B action as Novak Djokovic faces Robin Sonderling and Nadal tries for his first win of the tourney against Nikolay Davydenko
The Tennis channel will continue coverage of ATP tennis at the o2 arena in London with the afternoon session starting at 7:30 am eastern and the night matches beginning at 2:00pm eastern.
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