ATP World Tour Finals: Tomas Berdych ignites SF qualification race

By Ashley Williams

LONDON, England (TheSportsNEXT) November 7, 2012: World number six Tomas Berdych of Czech Republic ignited Group A qualification race on Wednesday when he defeated world number eight Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France by 7-5 3-6 6-1 in the ATP World Tour Finals played at the O2 Arena.

Tomas Berdych, who is seeded fifth at the ATP World Tour Finals, took an hour and 52 minutes to do away with seventh-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsogna who crashed out of the tournament after recording second straight defeat in front of the 17,587 fans at The O2.

This is the first time Tomas Berdych has won a match on British soil this season as the 27-year-old qualifier looks to achieve the pinnacles of success at the season-ending ATP World Tour Finals in his third attempt in as many years.

Tomas Berdych player will have to defeat Novak Djokovic for staying alive in the hunt on Friday while Jo-Wilfried Tsonga will be up against Andy Murray in his final appearance in this year’s ATP World Tour Finals.

Talking about the calculations involved in his possible qualification, Tomas Berdych told ATP, “I don't like mathematics at all. I will try to play tennis, and that's it. I will try my best. But Novak just has shown how great he's playing right now and that he deserve to be the No. 1 player in the world. It's a huge challenge for me. But the other hand, he already has two wins, so let's see what's going to be in that last match.”

Tomas Berdych, who has won eight ATP World Tour titles in ATP career, hit 33 winners and eight aces, winning 16 of his 24 points at the net during his 60^th victory of the current season against 21 defeats and improved his record against the Top opponents to 7-12 in 2012.

On the other hand, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga committed 31 unforced errors and is now languishing at last place in Group A after witnessing defeats in his two matches against Novak Djokovic and Tomas Berdych.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga has now won 55 matches this year as against 24 losses in the ATP 2012 season. He had won the same amount of matches during the ATP 2011 season. This year, the Frenchman has lost 11 matches against Top 8 players.

Tomas Berdych Girlfriend Ester Satorova watching him play

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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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Djokovic catches up on Federer in ATP Rankings

By Ashley Williams

Novak Djokovic scored 1,000 ATP rankings points with Shanghai Masters triumph.

LONDON, England (TheSportsNEXT) October 15, 2012: Novak Djokovic scored 1,000 ranking points with the Shanghai Masters title Sunday which took him just 195 points below world number one Roger Federer in the latest ATP Rankings published on Monday.

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Roger Federer, who lost to Andy Murray in the semis, has 12,165 points as he is now number one for a total of 300 weeks.

Djokovic is 195 points away with three championships yet to be decided in 2012 ATP calendar.

Novak Djokovic defeated Andy Murray in three sets by 5-7 7-6 (13-11) 6-3 in final of the Shanghai Rolex Masters which spanned for over three hours on Sunday which showed him in great form and shape to challenge Roger Federer on top of the ATP Tour Rankings.

As per the ATP rules, the Masters tournament has worth of 1,000 rankings points and with three Masters left this season there are a maximum of 3,000 rankings points up for grab and with Roger Federer enjoying a pretty slim lead of 195 points over Novak Djokovic, the battle has just heated up tremendously right towards the end of the season.

Roger Federer could have had a bigger lead on his Serbian opponent had he defeated Olympic and US Open title holder Andy Murray in Semi-Final of the Shanghai Rolex Masters.

Interestingly, all the three ATP Masters events will have Roger Federer as the defending champion after the Swiss tennis maestro revved up his game right at the end of the last year to came back into contention.

Andy Murray trails Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic as world number three while out-of-action Rafael Nadal is ranked fourth. All of these four players have qualified for the World Tour Finals and David Ferrer also joined them as fifth qualifier on Monday, which means the battle for the top spot will get to the wire. It also means that the battle will also have some means left for the players down the rankings as well.

As per the latest ATP Tour Rankings released Monday, the only change in the Top 10 was Tomas Berdych who improved his position by a place as he moved to sixth from seventh after losing to Novak Djokovic in the Shanghai Semi-Finals. He has replaced Jo-Wilfried Tsonga at sixth and has a slender 30 points lead over the Frenchman.

There are three ATP tournaments this week where four top 10 players are in the draws. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Tomas Berdych will be seen in action in Stockholm in Sweden while Juan Martin del Potro and Janko Tipsarevic will be vying for the laurels at Vienna, Austria.

Tomas Berdych, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Juan Martin del Potro are the leaders for the last three invitations to the World Tour Finals.

Following are the latest ATP Tour Rankings.

01-Roger Federer              12,165

02-Novak Djokovic            11,970

03-Andy Murray                 7,690

04-Rafael Nadal                6,995

05-David Ferrer                 5,360

06-Tomas Berdych             4,840

07-Jo-Wilfried Tsonga        4,810

08-Juan Martin del Potro     3,670

09-Janko Tipsarevic           3,265

10-Juan Monaco                2,775

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Battle for ATP World Number One Heats Up

By Ali Ahmed

Can Roger Federer equal Pete Sampras record of ending season as World Number 1 for six years?

KARACHI, Pakistan (TheSportsNEXT) October 16, 2012: World number two Novak Djokovic of Serbia won Shanghai Masters in big time on Sunday to get closer to world number one Roger Federer.

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Serbian tennis ace won his fifth title of the year in Shanghai this weekend and now he has won three ATP Masters titles this season.

Novak Djokovic who had a phenomenal last year was able to win only one Grand Slam this year and thus lost his number one ranking to Roger Federer in Wimbledon where the Swiss tennis maestro got the better of him in semi-final.

On the other hand, world number one Roger Federer added another feather to his crown by staying world number one for over 300 weeks and became only male player to do this and is still far ahead with this record because he is followed by Rafael Nadal who could get hold of number one position for 102 weeks thus far.

Roger Federer has been enjoying number one spot and can add another feat by finishing the year as best male tennis player for the sixth time in his ATP career. If he is able to do that he will equalize Pete Sampras’s record who achieved it from 1993 till 1998.

But at the same time Swiss player is struggling to retain his top ranking after getting defeated by Andy Murray in the Shanghai Masters last week.

After 2003 this is the year where no player is dominating so far and Grand Slams shared by four different players, In 2003, Andre Agassi, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Roger Federer, and Andy Roddick had won the Grand Slam titles and this year Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, and Andy Murray have got their hands on the Grand Slam titles. Interestingly, ATP Masters titles this year have been shared by Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.

But Rafael Nadal couldn’t increase his winning tally after a shock defeat in Wimbledon because of injury and still couldn’t return to the court and now Andy Murray is 4,400 points away from world number one Roger Federer. Failing to win the ATP Masters is one of the biggest reasons for Andy Murray’s massive points-difference with the number one.

So, the battle for world number one is still on for Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.

Conditions are quite tough for Roger Federer because he has to defend his all three scheduled tournaments.

Last year, Roger finished the season with an astonishing run, claiming the Basel, Paris Masters and ATP World Tour Finals titles. Djokovic and Murray will be the part for all these three events this year so Federer will have to be at his very best to repeat the feat.

So Defending 3,000 points will be quite tough for Swiss maestro but don’t forget Roger has won 20 Titles in Indoor Stadium and boasts a very impressive record in Basel and ATP World Tour Finals where he has won five and six titles respectively but surprisingly he won Paris Masters only once.

Novak Djokovic couldn’t make into any of the finals of these tournaments last year but managed to win Basel and Paris Master in 2009 and ATP world Tour Finals in 2008 and showed fabulous performance in last two weeks.

So the race will virtually be on till second week of November this year.

Will Novak Djokovic finish the year with number one rank for second consecutive time or will it be Roger Federer who will equalize Pete’s feat to finish the year with number one rank for sixth year?

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