ATP World Tour Finals: Juan Martin del Potro keeps SF fight alive

By Ashley Williams

LONDON, England (TheSportsNEXT) November 9, 2012: World number seven Juan Martin del Potro of Argentine kept the ATP World Tour Finals Semi-Finals fight alive on Thursday when he defeated world number nine Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia by 6-0 6-4 in 71 minutes at The O2 Arena in London.

Juan Martin del Potro, who has won one of his two matches at the ATP World Tour Finals, will have to beat world number two Roger Federer of Switzerland in his final round-robin match of the tournament on Saturday to make sure he joins the Swiss into Semi-Finals of the event.

World number give David Ferrer of Spain had defeated Juan Martin del Potro and now the Argentinean is in a must-win position and he would take inspiration from his victory over Roger Federer last month in final of the Basel Open 2012 last month.

Juan Martin del Potro looked completely a different player on Thursday when compared with his previous outing at the ATP World Tour Finals against David Ferrer as he never gave any window of opportunity to Janko Tipsarevic who has already crashed out of the tournament after facing two defeats in as many matches.

The big Argentinean, who is sixth seeded at the ATP World Tour Finals where he ended as runner-up in 2009, smashed six aces and clinched 84 percent of his first serve points as he turned the Group B alive.

The Saturday’s matches will decide who is going to join Roger Federer into semi-finals of the season-ending ATP World Tour Finals. David Ferrer and Juan Martin del Potro both have got realistic chance of making it into the last-four stage where the Spaniard is better placed as he is going to face the weakest opponent in the tournament in shape of Janko Tipsarevic while the Argentinean has his work cut out against the legendary Roger Federer.

Talking about his first victory at the current tournament, Juan Martin del Potro told ATP, "I'm glad to beat Janko tonight. I play much better than my first match here. A win in two sets gives me a chance to go to the next match. I know if I want to beat Roger, I should play much better than today and my first match."

With this victory, Juan Martin del Potro has surged to 4-0 lifetime record against Janko Tipsarevic and won his 64^th match of the year as against 16 defeats. He has also won four titles this season.

Janko Tipsarevic told ATP about what went wrong for him against del Potro, “I wouldn't really blame my loss on the sickness. I am generally feeling fine. The problem was that I was sick and I didn't play a lot of tennis lately. I feel sorry that I don't play my best tennis here in London, which is probably the best event of the year. But I fought hard to be in a position to come to this event. I'll just do my best for one more match.”

Juan Martin del Potro had some support in the crowd at The O2 Arena where his fellow countryman footballer Sergio Aguero was there to buck him up. Following the match, Juan Martin del Potro and Sergio Aguero, who represented Manchester City in the English Premier League, exchanged some shots at The O2 Arena court.

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Roger Federer breezes to 40th win at ATP World Tour Finals

By Ashley Williams

LONDON, England (TheSportsNEXT) November 7, 2012: World number two Roger Federer of Switzerland began his quest for seventh season-ending title with comfortable victory over world number nine Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia in his first match of the ATP World Tour Finals at O2 Arena on Tuesday.

Federer saw off Tipsarevic in just 69 minutes with score of 6-3 6-1.

Federer, who is competing at the ATP World Tour Finals for the 11^th consecutive season, is also looking to match John McEnroe in the list of all-time title-leaders with 77 titles.

This was a record 40^th victory for Roger Federer at the ATP World Tour Finals as the Swiss tennis maestro is looking ripe for a seventh season-ending title.

Roger Federer never looked in a spot of bother as he gave away only eight of his service points as eighth seeded Janko Tipsarevic could seldom show up against the legendary player.

Roger Federer’s victory over Janko Tipsarevic also propelled the Swiss world number two to break record of Ivan Lendl of winning most number of matches at the ATP World Tour Finals.

Talking about his game against Janko Tipsarevic, Roger Federer told ATP, “I'm happy with my level of play today against Janko, who is obviously a good player. I think it's nice conditions here. I've had a good year. It's true, I feel like I'm striking the ball well after today. I hope it's a sign for more to come hopefully.”

Janko Tipsarevic has never beaten Roger Federer in his ATP career and the pressure told on his game on Tuesday when he committed as many as 21 unforced errors as he slumped to sixth defeat against the Swiss.

Janko Tipsarevic told ATP, “I think Roger was just too good. I have not been feeling great for the last couple of days, but even in the previous matches that I played Roger, I wasn't having that much success, as you can see. I definitely won't blame the loss today on my medical situation, if you would call it like this. I probably would have lost anyway, but the problem was that he got an early break in both sets. Everybody knows that when Roger starts leading, he is probably the best player in the world when he's a break up early in the set. I gave it my best shot. It just didn't work today.”

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Who will win ATP World Tour Finals?

By Jawad Hussain

Top 8 Players in ATP Tour Rankings at River Thames Bridge

KARACHI, Pakistan (TheSportsNEXT) November 4, 2012: Some of the greatest tennis rivals were divided into two groups of four at draws of the ATP World Tour Finals 2012 which begins in O2 Arena of London from November 5.

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Top eight players in the ATP Tour Rankings including world number one Novak Djokovic of Serbia, Roger Federer of Switzerland, Andy Murray of Great Britain, David Ferrer of Spain, Tomas Berdych of Czech Republic, Juan Martin del Potro of Argentine, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France, and Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia will fight it out for the year-ending ATP World Tour Finals during the course of eight days.

The major absentee in the tournament is the former world number one Spanish player Rafael Nadal who has been out of action in the past few months due to an injury which has paved the way for Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia in the top eight players in the ATP world.

These top eight players have been divided into two pools of four players where Group A has Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Tomas Berdych, and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga while Group B has Roger Federer, Juan Martin del Potro, David Ferrer, and Janko Tipsarevic.

GROUP A

Novak Djokovic (Serbia)

Andy Murray (Great Britain)

Tomas Berdych (Czech Republic)

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (France)

GROUP B

Roger Federer (Switzerland)

David Ferrer (Spain)

Juan Martin del Potro (Argentine)

Janko Tipsarevic (Serbia)

The ATP World Tour Finals is one of the best tournaments in the ATP Tour as it gives all of the eight players good bit of time and chance to stay in the hunt, unlike all other tournaments which are based on the knockout matches.

The season-ending ATP World Tour Finals has Barclays as the leading sponsor and the organizers announced the draws on Saturday in London where they pitted some of the best tennis players against each other.

Kirsty Gallacher at
ATP World Tour Finals Preview

As per the draws, Roger Federer and Juan Martin del Potro are the two likely qualifiers from Group B while Group A may see Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic going through to the semi-finals stage.

However, the four players from the bottom half are capable of pulling out a major upset on any given day which makes the tournament even more mouth-watering.

David Ferrer is in prime touch these days and has already qualified into the final of the BNP Paribas Masters in Paris along with Jerzy Janowicz while Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Tomas Berdych, and Janko Tisparevic have also done good in the recent tournaments so it makes the ATP World Tour Finals all more intriguing.

Out of the total 12 round-robin matches there are some matches which will be widely followed across the world by tennis fans which will have Roger Federer vs Juan Martin del Potro and Andy Murray vs Novak Djokovic on top of the list.

Novak Djokovic has already secured the world number one position for the current season for a second successive year and would look to take revenge of his defeats in finals of the London 2012 and US Open where the British Andy Murray secured his maiden titles. On the other hand, Andy Murray would be looking to regain his dominance over the Serb which he broke with Shanghai Rolex Masters title and the two players are pretty much evenly poised in their career head-to-head records where Djokovic has a slim advantage over Murray with 9-7 record.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga may have tasted defeat to the hands of David Ferrer in semi-final of the BNP Paribas Masters the other day but has a good past record at the ATP World Tour Finals where he ended as runner-up last year.

Roger Federer has been a star at the ATP World Tour Finals winning the year-ending title six times, i.e. in 2003 with victory over Andre Agassi, in 2004 with win over Lleyton Hewitt, in 2006 with win over James Blake, in 2007 with triumph over David Ferrer, in 2010 with victory over Rafael Nadal, and in 2011 when he defeated Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. He will be up against Juan Martin del Potro who he has defeated 13 times in 16 meetings between the two.

Juan Martin del Potro is playing the ATP World Tour Finals for the first time since 2009 when he ended as runner-up and his presence at The O2 Arena this year will make a huge difference.

The tournament which starts Monday will have Andy Murray vs Tomas Berdych and Novak Djokovic vs Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on the opening day.

The ATP World Tour Finals will have in store for the tennis fans the Roger Federer vs Janko Tipsarevic and David Ferrer vs Juan Martin del Potro on Tuesday.

ATP World Tour Finals 2012 Schedule

Monday, 5 November 2012  Andy Murray vs Tomas Berdych   1:45pm

Monday, 5 November 2012   Novak Djokovic vs Jo-Wilfried Tsonga  7:45pm

Tuesday, 6 November 2012   Roger Federer vs Janko Tipsarevic 1:45pm

Tuesday, 6 November 2012 Juan Martin del Potro vs David Ferrer   7:45pm

What’s your take? Tell us in comments who do you see winning the ATP World Tour Finals.

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Janko Tipsarevic cruises into Vienna quarterfinals

By Alexia Krause

Janko Tipsarevic doing his best to qualify for ATP World Tour Finals

VIENNA, Austria (TheSportsNEXT) October 19, 2012: Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia did a world of good to his chances of featuring in the season-ending ATP World Tour Finals on Thursday when he outplayed Ernests Gulbis of Latvia in straight sets by 6-3 6-4 at the Erste Bank Open.

This is Janko Tipsarevic’s 13^th quarterfinal of the current season where he will face off against Aljaz Bedene of Slovenia who edged out Donald Young of United States in a hard-fought match by 7-6 (4) 6-7 (2) 6-3.

Janko Tipsarevic is currently ranked ninth in the ATP Tour Rankings and he needs to be among the top eight best tennis players to ensure his inclusion into the year-ending ATP World Tour Finals.

Tipsarevic looked good with his game Thursday as he dropped one serve in each set but used his dominance over the baselines to topple his opponent.

Talking to reporters after his impressive victory, Janko Tipsarevic said, “I have to be pumped for every single point and not think what's going on behind me or ahead of me. The only thing I care about now is winning my next match. I don't think about winning the tournament or about reaching London”.

When asked about his consistency in reaching the last-eight encounters of the ATP tournaments, Tipsarevic said that Serbia winning the Davis Cup pumped new attitude and confidence into his game which has helped him becoming one of the most consistent top 10 players of the current season.

When asked about his game, the Serb said, “I don't feel I improved my forehand, backhand or serve dramatically. I just feel that now I am living and breathing tennis outside of the tennis court as much as I am on the tennis court. ... This changed after winning the Davis Cup. I realized I wasn't getting any younger and that I would regret it if I realized one day that I could have reached more in my career”.

 

In another match played Thursday, Marinko Matosevic got the better of wild card entry Dominic Thiem by 6-3 7-6 (5) to set up a tough quarterfinal match against Argentinean Juan Martin del Potro. Greg Zamlja outdid Matthew Ebedn by 7-5 6-4 while Paolo Lorenzi saw off Vasek Posposil by 6-4 6-4.

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