Oh well its time for the second part of my ATP world tour finals posts and it sees the action from day 3 get take place at the o2 arena in London, where the players in Group A went at it, so let's have a look at them.
Starting with the most anticipated match of the day, which was Andy Murray taking on Novak Djokovic, the world no.3 vs the world no.1 (respectively). This was to be their 7th meeting of the year, which was remarkable in itself that they have met so many times already, and throughout the year they have developed an exciting rivalry which promises to carry on hopefully for a few years yet to come. But anyway on to the match itself, which thankfully added to their collection of high quality, exciting and entertaining matches they have put out in 2012 so far. And it was Andy that got off to the stronger start as he played some blisteringly aggressive tennis, breaking Nole straight away and he went on to close out the 1st set. In the 2nd however the momentum shifted towards Djokovic who broke Andy and went on to seal the 2nd set to take the match into a decider, where the two men traded breaks, but it was Djokovic that made the crucial break to make it 6-5 to serve it out, and despite Andy having two break points to break back to take the match into a tiebreak, Nole showed his nerves of steel and sealed Andy's fate with a 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 victory.
This was quite a match from what little I've seen, with arguably the two best players in the world right now just going at it full pelt, producing some incredible tennis for the full capacity 17,000 strong crowd. And the fact that they continue to do it time after time is just remarkable in itself, and for Andy it has to be said he wasn't overly careless in this match, it was just a case of a few points here and there that made the difference, with Andy missing the margins on key points, and it just went Novak's way at the end. So even though Andy lost, he is by no means out of it yet, as has another match ahead of him against Tsonga, which he must win in order to stay in the tournament. Thankfully Andy has a 6-2 head to head over the Frenchman, and he hasn't been beaten by him since the Australian Open back in 2008, and given his form so far in the tournament, its seems unlikely that Tsonga will stage an upset, but you never know. There is more at stake here for Andy though, as if he wins this match he will go through to the semi finals, so he will need to win it, and if he doesn't well it all depends on how the other match with Djokovic and Berdych will go on Friday. So its all up in the air for now!
As for the Berdych and Tsonga match tonight, well it was another entertaining match, with both men capable of great firepower and big serves, and there was plenty of that I think (although I haven't seen it yet). And it was Berdych that go off to the better start, breaking Tsonga take the first set 7-5, in the 2nd set however Tsonga started to find his feet, breaking Berdy and he went on to take clinch the set 6-3 to go into the decider. However Berdych soon stamped his authority again in the 3rd set, and he broke Tsonga twice, dominating the Frenchman who made a rash of errors, while the Czeck breezed through his service games to clinch a much needed win to keep his hopes alive in the tournament, winning 7-5, 3-6, 6-1. So this sets up a match between Djokovic and Berdych, and straight away I would say that Djokovic will be the favourite to win, especially considering Berdych has only beaten Djokovic once! But anything can happen so you can never tell which way the matches will go, for all we know it could be Berdych and Tsonga emerging victorious on Friday, but I sort of doubt it.
So that's it for day 3 at the ATP WTF and tomorrow we will have Roger Federer and co back in action, as Roger takes on David Ferrer, whom he has a terrific winning record over, i.e. he has never been beaten by Ferrer, with a very healthy 13-0 record in the Swiss's favour, so that's great in itself! Also in action will be Juan Martin Del Potro who is set to take on the Serb no.2, Janko Tipsarevic, which promises to be quite an interesting match, but I would favour the big Argentine to win that one, as he leads their head to head 3-0. So plenty of good stuff tomorrow, but I can easily see Roger and Delpo being the winners here, but its hard to tell so we will just have to wait and see.
And that's it for now, except to say quickly on the doubles, that the Brit Jonathan Marray and his partner, Freddie Nielsen have secured their place in the semi finals, after defeating the top seeds and defending champions, Daniel Nestor and Max Myrni with a hard fought 7-6, 4-6, 12-10 victory. So they may yet achieve another fairytale ending by winning the title, and if Andy doesn't win at least we might have another British champion at the tournament.
So that is all the now, more to follow tomorrow after Roger, Ferrer, Delpo and Tipsy do their stuff.
Bye for now!
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