TENNIS 2014 ATP FINALS – Roger Federer drops just one game against Andy Murray in the final match in Group B. The Swiss won 6-0, 6-1 in just 55 minutes of play. He qualifies for his 12th Masters semifinal in 13 appearances. From London, Paul Sassoon
Roger Federer was the strong favourite for this final match of Group B, but it was hard to imagine that he would have won so easily against Andy Murray. Right from the start the Swiss took control of the match, breaking in the second game and then he never relinquished control. Murray managed to avoid the humiliation of a double bagel, but it still one of his worst defeats. This was the 11th time that Murray lost a set 6-0, the last time was in 2011 against Gael Monfils in Canada. Clearly this event is one that gets the best out of the Swiss player as he has managed to inflict heavy defeats to each of the Fab Four on this court; Djokovic lost 6-1, 6-4 in 2010, Nadal lost 6-3, 6-0 in 2011 and Murray lost 6-0, 6-1 today.
The crowd was mostly on Federer’s side from the start, but once they realised that they were going to watch another quick one-sided affair they tried to cheer Murray, but it was to no avail. There was laughter when the cameras picked up a dancing kid and when they showed a banner reading “I sold my car to see Fed”. But the biggest reaction, in this case negative, was for the Chelsea manager Josè Mourinho that was heavily booed when shown on the big screen. Clearly not many Chelsea fans in the stands tonight.
Federer analysed his win like this, “I think the surface here doesn’t forgive much. I think if there’s a slight difference of the level from the baseline, hard to get out of it. We’ve seen it all week. The serve doesn’t have that much impact. I didn’t even necessarily serve so well. But you got to play the right way here, use the court to your advantage as much as you can. But I had the upper hand from the baseline, which hasn’t always happened against him. But I definitely was able to play on my terms. For me, things went very well. I was able to put Andy under pressure very often, and I think the match couldn’t have gone any better for me really.”
The world number one wasn’t happy about Murray’s situation, “not so cool because I wouldn’t want to be in that position. I was happy to get it done. At the end I was happy I didn’t win the second to last game to be quite honest. Yeah, it’s uncomfortable. I don’t know. I don’t like it.”
Depending on the results tomorrow, Federer may face Wawrinka in the semifinals with just over a week to go before the Davis Cup final, “I don’t know what he needs to do to win. I just hope he beats Cilic and makes it somehow, whatever that scenario is. I’d love to play against Stan here in the semis. It would be historic for us to make it for a second consecutive year into the semis. If we play each other, it’s a good thing that one of us is going to go to the finals. It’s an extra match for Stan, in particular. It’s an opportunity for both of us to play a quality match ahead of Davis Cup. But honestly Davis Cup is so far away in my mind right now. We care about playing very well here. I’m very happy I’m getting to play an extra match because I want to arrive in France with a lot of matches in my legs. I wouldn’t want it any other way. I’m happy that Stan has also picked up his level. I hope he can qualify and make it special for the weekend.”
After the match Murray looked shell shocked in the press conference, “it was a tough night. I mean, yeah, I’ve lost slam finals and stuff, which has been very tough. But in terms of the way the match went, yeah, it was not ideal from my side of the court”
After the match Murray looked shell shocked in the press conference, “it was a tough night. I mean, yeah, I’ve lost slam finals and stuff, which has been very tough. But in terms of the way the match went, yeah, it was not ideal from my side of the court”
As always in these matches it is difficult to determine whether it was the winner who played extraordinarily well, or the loser extraordinarily bad. According to Murray it was the Swiss who was on top form tonight, “Well, he played exceptionally well. That’s for sure. I mean, I can say I’m disappointed with my level tonight. But if I played well, he probably still would have won anyway. He was playing very well. He was striking the ball very, very clean. After the first few games of the match, yeah, he played exceptionally well. Made very few mistakes. Was hitting the ball off the middle of the racquet on serve, returns. He maybe didn’t hit his first serve as well as he can, but apart from that everything else was very clean.”
The contest was over pretty quickly as Federer broke serve in the second game and then won the next four in a row winning 16 points and dropping just 2. In the set he won 26 points and Murray just 8.
The story of the second set wasn’t much different even if Murray managed to score a few more points and a game that enabled him to avoid the double bagel. In just 55 minutes Federer won 6-0, 6-1 sealing his place in the semifinals for the 12th time in 13 appearances in this event. He is first in the group and Nishikori second. With tomorrow’s results we will know the semifinal lineup for Saturday
