World Tour Finals – Day 1

Group B – first round

(4)Roger Federer d. (6)Jo-Wilfried Tsonga      6-2, 2-6, 6-4       [ 1:28 h ]

The finalists of the last Sunday (Paris), met again on Sunday, this time in an opening match of the third consecutive ‘Masters’ in London to create one of the biggest H2H’s within a season #. After two lopsided sets, seemed that a tie-break would decide the final outcome, but in the 10th game Tsonga made two errors (including a double fault – risky 2nd serve), invited the opponent to attack with a poor slice and all of a sudden Federer saw a triple match point in his favor. Tsonga saved the first one with a powerful serve, but a lucky sliced return helped Federer a lot and the Frenchman only delivered the ball to the other side – Federer passed him with a calm backhand down the line to notch 13th win in a row (fourth best result of the year). “Once he got the upper hand in the second set, he started to swing more freely and got more dangerous. With me, it was just trying to stay calm, trying to wait for my chance, trying to create chances when he was not serving as well as he did at times.” said the title defender.

(2)Rafael Nadal d. (8)Mardy Fish              6-2, 3-6, 7-6(3)          [ 2:55 h ]

Fish – arguably the weakest link of the eight-men field – began his first ‘Masters’ appearance timorously like he was afraid of his body (retired in his last two tournaments). He played an awful first game on serve, was broken again at 2:4 down. The level of play was incomparably higher (also literally – many rallies with semi-lobs) in the following two sets, Fish dictated the pace with his intelligent play, mixing the things up with nice volleys and drop-shots. In a tipsy-turvy 3rd set, Nadal led 2:0, then Fish 3:2 with a break, Nadal wasted two match points at 5:4 and a tie-break had to decide. Unfortunately Fish played it badly, couldn’t return any of first four Nadal’s standard serves, and the Spaniard converted the third match point with Fish’s backhand volley error. The match was capped at 11:28 p.m. local time. “I was just excited to get out there and be a part of this whole thing,” admitted Fish. “I didn’t play well. Obviously I got a little more comfortable after playing a set. Sort of getting used to all the surroundings with people in there. With the lights back, dark, it makes for good tennis. Conditions are absolutely perfect. That took a little bit of getting used to, I guess, 20 minutes or so.”

Doubles results:
(3)M.Mirnyi/D.Nestor d. (5)R.Bopanna/A.Qureshi 7-6(2), 4-6, [11-9]
(8)M.Fyrstenberg/M.Matkowski d. (2)M.Llodra/N.Zimonjic 6-4, 5-7, [11-9]

# Seven meetings between two players within a year:

1984: John McEnroe vs. Ivan Lendl (6-1)
1995: Michael Chang vs. Jim Courier (4-3)
2007: Rafael Nadal vs. Novak Djokovic (5-2)
2009: Rafael Nadal vs. Novak Djokovic (4-3)
2011: Roger Federer vs. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (5-2)