World Tour Finals Preview

Before looking ahead to the Tour Finals in London, a quick look back at the culmination of the Paris Masters. Semifinal day was one of the best days of the entire tennis year, with Gael Monfils upsetting Roger Federer and Robin Soderling holding off a stern challenge from Michael Llodra. Both winners had to save match points, and both matches were settled in a third-set tiebreak. I considered it a great rebuke for all the commentators who said that the tennis season ended after the U.S. Open - this was a pretty exciting result. The final didn't quite live up to expectations, as Monfils was never really in it, even though he took the second set to a tiebreak. Kudos to Soderling for winning his first Masters Series shield - honestly, I'm surprised it took him that long. Monfils played amazing tennis but couldn't quite close the deal. I think next year could be big for him, though.

In any case, the draw came out today for the World Tour Finals, and I've read articles complaining both about the weakness of Federer's gorup and of Nadal's group. Personally, I think the two groups are relatively well-balanced, and should lead to some interesting match-ups.

Group A has top seed Rafael Nadal, U.S. Open finalist Novak Djokovic, Wimbledon finalist Tomas Berdych, and 8th-place finisher Andy Roddick. Despite the fact that Roddick is lowest-ranked player in the year-end finals, he's not the weakest player here. Tomas Berdych has been in terrible form since he made the final at Wimbledon, going 8-12 in that span, and only winning back-to-back matches two times. He also has a 1-6 record against the other players in his section this year, with the lone win coming over a lackluster Djokovic in the Wimbledon semis. It's tough to imagine Berdych making a run here, considering just how poorly he's played. Since beating Federer and Djokovic back to back, Berdych's biggest win has been against world number 37 Andrey Golubev. Barring a stunning reversal of fortune, he goes 0-3.

Roddick is an interesting question mark. Since the U.S. Open, Roddick has played stellar tennis - until he's had to play a top player. He lost an incredibly close match to Gael Monfils, then really underperformed in his matches against Federer and Soderling. Thankfully for Roddick, they're both in the other Round Robin group. Instead he gets Nadal and Djokovic - and Roddick is 1-0 against each of them this year. Unfortunately for Roddick, he beat both of them outdoors in North America. While Roddick will probably enjoy the conditions here as well, it remains to be seen if it will allow him to play his absolute best. Of course, if Roddick's serve is firing and he can play consistently enough to let loose on a few of his groundstrokes, he'll be tough to beat.

While Roddick's injury status is a question mark - he looked healthy enough in Paris, but he's been hampered through much of the year - it's nowhere near as up in the air as Rafael Nadal's. He's been having shoulder troubles this Fall, and even withdrew from the Paris Masters as a precaution. It will be interesting to see whether he skipped Paris simply because he was having injury difficulties, or if he was trying to maximize his chances at the year-end championships, where Nadal has never done well, historically. He's 4-7 at the event in three appearances. Shockingly, Nadal and Djokovic have only played once this year, while they played an astonishing seven times in 2009, and their matches are always close.

Djokovic has been in good form, but he may be more focused on the Davis Cup final, which follows pretty closely after the WTF in London. The biggest question will be whether or not Nadal is injured, but I think that the odds are pretty good that any two of Roddick, Nadal, and Djokovic will find their way out of this section of the draw. The odds are longest for Berdych, but he has wins over everybody in his section, at least...

That's not the case in Group B, where David Ferrer is 0-10 against Roger Federer. Of course, Robin Soderling, who is also in that group, once had that sort of record against Roger. He may have notched his first win there this year, but Federer is still 24-1 against those two players. The intriguing part of that section of the draw is that the fourth player is one of the few people who Federer has a losing record against: Andy Murray.

It's appropriate, first of all, that Robin Soderling and David Ferrer meet up in this round robin group. Ferrer, while not having any particularly big results this year, has won more matches than any player not named Nadal or Federer. And he and Soderling have faced off more often this season than any other pair of players, with Soderling leading the head-to-head 3-2 this year. In addition to this competitive match-up and Ferrer's abysmal record against Federer, Ferrer actually has a 3-1 record against Andy Murray, though all of those wins were on clay. As I noted, Ferrer has not had any particularly big wins this year, though he has been in five finals and won two titles. He's been a solid player, showing up every week, but that may not be enough to get him results when he's only player other top guys. On the other hand, in Ferrer's only other appearance here, he made the finals of the event, going 3-0 in Round Robin play. So who knows?

Soderling enters the event on the biggest high, having just won the biggest title of his career. He's also the only player entering the event on a winning streak, as a result. He made the semis here last year, beating Nadal and Djokovic along the way, before he lost to Juan Martin Del Potro. As noted above, Soderling has a terrible record against Federer, and while the Sod does love indoor courts, the conditions are about as different as could be compared to the slow, heavy courts at Roland Garros where the Swede got his one win against Roger. Soderling and Murray have a competitive match history, 2-2, though Soderling has won their only match this year, which was their first since 2006.

Murray's form coming into this tournament is interesting. He just dipped to number five, being superseded by Soderling in the rankings. He played well in the U.S. hardcourt swing prior to the U.S. Open, and then won in Shanghai, but it's been either feast or famine for Murray, who lost to Ljubicic and Monaco when he wasn't winning in China. He can regain the fourth spot in the rankings if he makes it further than Soderling - or even wins an extra match! - but he has a tricky section and he may finish the year at five if he cracks under the pressure of being in London. It's been both a blessing and a curse for Murray in the past.

And of course, Federer. Despite losing to Monfils in the Bercy semifinals, he very nearly won that match, and he had won the previous two tournaments heading into that match. He's 29-7 in the World Tour Finals, with four titles to his name. He hasn't won it since 2007, so he must be itching to get back in that winner's circle. Also, if he wants to reclaim the world number one ranking from Rafael Nadal (and he surely does) then a win here would be a great step towards that in 2011. I don't want to put too much weight on it, but Federer's results here could indicate whether he really can get close to the dominating form he showed at the peak of his career, or if those days are really behind him for good.

Lots on the line here.