Federer decimates Nadal in three sets to take away the Barclay’s ATP World Tour Finals title
World Number 2 Roger Federer shattered top player Rafael “Rafa” Nadal’s hopes of snagging his first end of year tournament title by defeating the Spaniard in three sets, 6-3, 3-6, 6-1. This is the fifth time that the Swiss player has managed to win the ATP
World Tour Finals, and it levels him with players such as Ivan Lendl and Pete Sampras where records are concerned.
Although the event’s final match was not all the world had been expecting from a Nadal-Federer meeting, especially when their previous matches were kept in mind; the duo has had some magnificent matches against each other, and this fell short of the mark.
However, it was nonetheless riveting, keeping spectators glued to their seats. Unluckily for Nadal and his fans, Federer eclipsed the Spaniard throughout the match. Rafa still put up a strong fight, in spite of the fact that he is not at his physical best
this month.
Nadal’s performance in this match was relative to whether or not he would be able to recover in time from Saturday’s three-hour-long defeat of Britain’s Number 1 Andy Murray. This was in contrast to Federer’s performance in the past few matches; the player
had defeated his four previous opponents in straight sets, in addition to which he was able to take Serb Novak Djokovic down with only five games lost.
The first indicators of Nadal’s discomfort came when he was left standing stationary while Federer shot winner after winner towards his half of the court. The first set proved that Rafa was feeling the stress cause by the past week, and this was proven by
the first break opportunity. Nadal served the beall at 3-4, and Federer casually took the shot with a swift backhand winner fired across the court. While Federer tends to look slightly overwhelmed during matches with Nadal, the 29 year old faced no such problems
yesterday and took the set away with a forehand winner.
However, Nadal regained his footing in the second set after Federer shot a volley into the net. It gave Rafa his first break point in the fourth game, and when Federer shot a wide forehand, Nadal was able to take the set 6-3. Despite this, he seemed to give
up the match in the final set when he faced a break point in the third game of the tie breaker. Federer made a comeback to give his rival some serious trouble, and Nadal was unable to combat his forehand. The World Number 2 now held serve and challenged his
opponent for a double break, which he achieved when Federer seemed to give up all hope to net a backhand. Federer won the tiebreaker 6-1.
With this victory, Federer has earned 1500 ranking points in addition to a little over one million dollars. The player was overjoyed by his victory, saying, “I’ve really enjoyed playing here this week, it’s been a wonderful atmosphere once again. Rafa’s
had an amazing year, one any player dreams of.” Meanwhile the World Number 1 admitted that his defeat had come about at the hands of a much stronger player. He said, “I want to congratulate Roger. He played unbelievable throughout the whole week. It was a
fantastic year for me, probably the most emotional of my career.”
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