Right well that's nearly it for the men's tennis tour this year, but one event remains after the Paris Masters, and that is the ATP World Tour Finals, held at the o2 Arena in London as from this Monday coming. In this event it will see the top 8 players in the world go at it for the right to win the year end championship trophy, with Roger Federer already the defending champion, this really is the creme de la creme of the men's game going at it full pelt, so it will be exciting to see who comes out on top.
So let's have a quick look at the groups, as there will be a Group A and B, and in group A we will the once again World No.1, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Tomas Berdych and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, which is a far from enviable line-up for any of the men in the group. In the B group, we will have Roger Federer, David Ferrer, Janko Tipsarevic and Juan Martin Del Potro. And out of those two groups, it has to be said that Roger has the more favourable of the two, as he has excellent head to heads over Tipsy and Ferrer (as neither of them has ever beaten him!) however Del Potro will be the sternest test out of the three of them, as he has already beaten Federer this year indoors at Basel Swiss Indoors. But with Roger being the indoor hard court king, and if he recovers his form, then he will be remarkably tough to beat and I could very well see him defend his title this year as well. However we are a long way off that so we will just have to wait and see.
As for Djokovic, well he hasn't had the best time of it lately as he made a shock early exit at the Paris Masters when the big American, Sam Querrey defeated him in the 2nd round, which marked the first Djokovic had been beaten in a first round match in over two years! However Novak has been having family problems, with reports of his dad in hospital in a poor way, its understandable that he would perform under par as he did in Paris. And how that affects at the o2 in London remains to be seen, as it could see Novak struggle badly on court. And Novak also struggled badly last year as well after having had such a stellar season, by the time he reached the o2, his season had really started to wind down, as the effort of winning so many matches took its toll. But Nole will definitely have his chances, and as he has already been a past time champion back in 2008, its very possible that he could win here again.
And that brings us onto Andy Murray, who of late has also had a bit of a ropey time in tennis, as he suffered another shock early defeat in Paris, against the big serving Pole, Jerzy Janowicz. In the match itself, Andy was serving for the match being a set and a break up, at 5-4, he squandered match points to let the big Jerzy back into the match, who went on to win the 2nd set tiebreak, and he continued his unstoppable form in the 3rd set, breaking Andy twice to win the match in 5-7, 7-6, 6-2. This shows a rather worrying sign from Andy as this has been the 3rd occassion in as many tournaments where he has had match points against his opponent and he has squandered all of them, only to go and be beaten. And it might be acceptable to do this on the ATP tour, but he doesn't want to do this next week at the o2, if he has got match points he cannot squander them, especially not against the top 8 players in the world, as they will take them and run. Berdych for example has a winning head to head record over Andy, 4-3, but Andy has beaten him twice this year already, and Berdy has been somewhat erratic lately, which is not a bad thing. Tsonga also has been a bit erratic, and he made a quarter final exit in Paris this week, and Andy beat him back in Wimbledon this year to reach his first final there. But then we have Djokovic, and well.... we all know how good they are when they play tennis, and if Nole recovers good form next week, it will be 50/50.
So Andy will have his chances to win next week but he will have to play his best tennis in order to do it, but it has been reported that he back with his coach, Ivan Lendl, so hopefully he can get some good practice in before the event starts on Monday. This is one of the advantages of exiting a tournament early of course, as it gives Andy more time to prep for the year end final, and get use to the conditions of the courts at the o2 arena. And I was rather surprised to see that he hadn't seen Lendl since he won the US Open, but naturally I think he really hired Lendl to win the big events like the majors, and the o2, and not the smaller tour events. But I definitely think he will need to tighten up his game this week coming to have any chance in winning the title, however nothing is impossible, and we will have to wait and see. But his first match on Monday (5.11.12) will be against Tomas Berdych, which will no doubt prove to be a real tough one, as it is indoors, there will be no outside elements for Berdy to put up with, like he did in their previous match at the US Open semi final, but in these events there are no easy matches that much is for sure.
Right well that's it for my pre-summary of the ATP world tour finals, it promises to be a cracking event, and its a shame that Rafa won't be playing, due to his ongoing knee problem, but I'm sure it will be still great even without him. As for Rafa well he has said that while he won't be fit to compete this week at the world finals, he hopes to be back at the end of the year for the Abu Dhabi Mubadala World Tennis Championship exhibition event, which is held every year at the end of December, which I hope he will play, as it would great to see him back on tour where he very much belongs. The event itself promises to be really entertaining as other top players will play as well such as David Ferrer, Tomas Berdych, Janko Tipsarevic, some fella called Novak Djokovic and another British fella called Andy Murray. So I will look forward to that over the festive season.
Oh and as a quick update on the Paris masters, a great bit of news as David Ferrer, the world no.5, and Spanish numero 2, has won the title there after beating the big Pole, Jerzy Janowicz in 6-4, 6-3. This is Ferrer's first ever ATP Masters 1000 title, and the biggest one of his career, and after four attempts he's finally made the last step to lift the trophy (albeit a rather ugly looking one!). So a big well done to Ferrer who has fought so hard throughout his career and has always come up a little short in the big tournaments, but this time he's managed to come through and deservedly so, as he now rightly joins the other top players such as Berdych, Soderling and Tsonga who have all claimed one Masters title, and its the least Ferrer deserves.
So that's it for now, more to follow once the ATP World Tour finals get's underway.
Till then that's it for now!
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