World Tour Finals Day 2

At last, we've had an interesting match at the World Tour Finals! After three more blow-out, straight matches in the first singles and the first two doubles matches, the night match between Andy Roddick and Rafael Nadal featured stellar tennis from both players. Roddick won the first set and was up a break in the second set, but Nadal picked up his game and the American couldn't quite stay level with the world number one from the back of the court. It was a very hard-fought match, and even though he didn't come away with the victory, Roddick has to be encouraged by the result.

He came into the event playing solid tennis, but he hadn't had a win against a top-ten player since Cincinnati, and his injury status was sort of unresolved. But he started the event playing the only player in his group that he has a losing record against, the reigning champion of the past three grand slams, and world number one. If he could have won that match, Roddick would have felt pretty confident about being able to run the table. Frankly, if he can play as well as he did against Nadal in his next two matches, Berdych doesn't have a shot, and Djokovic could be in trouble. Obviously, Roddick will be disappointed by the way his level dipped at key moments (serving up a minibreak in the second set tiebreak?) but overall, he was playing at a very high level. He forced the top player in the world to dig deep and play his very best tennis. Roddick's still in with a shout, which is the benefit of the round robin format.

Looking ahead to tomorrow, I think we may have our second and perhaps third tightly-contested matches, since the line-up is absolutely appetizing. First off, we have Federer vs. Murray, a rematch of the Australian Open, Toronto, and Shanghai finals, this year. Murray leads the overall head to head 8-5 and this year by 2-1. Both of them won their opening matches, so a victory tomorrow would all but seal their place in the semifinals. Not to mention the fact that Federer won their meeting at the finals last year (in London!) but Murray won the year before - there's a lot on the line, here. I think Murray probably played better in his opening round match, but his opponent also played worse. Murray has gotten the better of Federer more often than not lately (when it hasn't been in a Grand Slam, anyway) but Fed has been in better form. This one's too close to call.

But if there's a lot riding on the first match, there's even more riding on the second one. Robin Soderling and David Ferrer, who each lost their opening rounds, need a win to stay in contention. Not to mention, the pair met five times this year (the most meetings of any pair in 2010, leading up to the World Tour Finals) with Soderling leading 3-2, but Ferrer won two of the last three. Their five meetings were all since Wimbledon, too - which means they have had plenty of looks at each other's games in the past few months. Ferrer played better in his opening match, but Soderling was in great form two weeks ago in Paris. Again, this one is just too close to call.

I'm excited for both of these matches, and hoping that they can live up to the level of play that Roddick and Nadal set today.

World Tour Finals Day 1

So the first day of action at the World Tour Finals was a bit of a dud, in all honesty.

Robin Soderling may have replaced Andy Murray as the world number four and won his first Masters Series shield last week, but he looked very much like the Soderling of a couple years ago who was mired around 25 in the world against Murray today. Honestly, I was really puzzled by Soderling's tactics today. It was always going to be tough for Soderling to hang from the back of the court with Murray, since the Scot can run down just about anything. But I thought that the solution for the Swede was just to bludgeon the ball with increasing force. That's been the formula for beating Murray in the past - Verdasco, Gonzalez, Berdych, Cilic, Querrey, even Soderling did it that way in their previous matches. The secret was out. But shockingly, today Robin's gameplan was to rush the net every chance he got, where he was either completely helpless on his volleys or a target for Murray to pass. It was a beatdown.

The second match, between Roger Federer and David Ferrer, looks like it had a similar scoreline, but it was actually a bit closer than that. Ferrer may have won fewer games, but that's in large part because he started off the match in absolutely awful form, spraying his forehand and unable to hit a first serve. He finally got into the match, but he was already down a double break, and once he blinked in the second set, it was pretty much over. Still, it was a much more encouraging performance from Ferrer than from Soderling - the Spaniard actually knew what he had to do in order to beat Federer, he just couldn't play at that high a level for long enough, and he missed a couple key points. Soderling just looked baffled and overawed by the situation.

Looking ahead to tomorrow's matches, it's very difficult for me to see Berdych upsetting Djokovic. Since the two played at Wimbledon, their levels of play could not have been any different. Berdych has been absolutely AWOL while Djokovic has found the best form he's been in since early 2008. Barring a miraculous revival from Berdych (or a grievous injury to Novak) there's no way that the Serb loses this one.

The night match tomorrow could be very interesting, but I think that the odds of letdown are pretty high here. Both players are in questionable condition here - Nadal skipped the last tournament of the year due to injury. We'll find out tomorrow whether he would have skipped that tournament regardless of where it fell in the calendar, or if he was just limiting his play in order to maximize his chances here at the year-end championships. Normally, that's not a tactic I'd associate with Nadal, but these championships are the biggest hole in Nadal resume by far. If he was just saving his strength for this event, the rest of the field could be in trouble. But if he's really hobbled and worn down by another long (if spectacular) season, then the other players in his group have a good shot.

Roddick's level of play may be just as much a question mark. He squeaked into the year-end championships after his year, which started out spectacularly, was sidetracked by a mild bout of mono and injury. All week, he's been saying that he's just glda to have qualified, and nobody's really talking about him as a contender. Either he's really not thinking he's at a level where he can win four to five matches against the best players in the game, or he's just flying under the radar.

We'll know a lot more about the answers to both of these questions after the match tomorrow. I'm very curious to see how it goes.

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.

Beijing and Tokyo

Between these two Asian tournaments, one is clearly the stronger field. Beijing has Nadal, Djokovic, Roddick, and five of the other top fifteen players among their eight seeds. The number one seed in Tokyo is JMDP, but the rest of the seeds are not quite at his pedigree. While China has Davydenko, Verdasco, Soderling, Gonzalez, and Cilic filling out its top players, all of whom have had strong performances in the last few months, Tokyo has Tsonga, Monfils, Simon, Berdych, Stepanek, Wawrinka, and Hewitt. Now they're all strong players, all in the top 26 at the moment, but with the exception of Monfils and Simon, none has done anything of note during the Summer hardcourt swing.

As for the breakdown of the quarters, Nadal is seeded to meet Gonzo, but his section is packed, so here's hoping he's recovered from his injury. Baghdatis first round, James Blake second, and then he could just as easily get Safin, Acasuso, or Ferrer instead of Gonzalez. Tough draw for the world number 2. The second quarter is less stacked, with Davydenko seeded to meet Cilic, if each can survive the few dangerous floaters, Andreev, Kohlschreiber, and Karlovic.

In the third quarter, Soderling is seeded to meet Andy Roddick, who has never beaten the Swede in two meetings. But they've had three tiebreakers in four sets. If it gets there, it should be interesting. Soderling would have to get through Jeremy Chardy and Tommy Robredo. Roddick should have an easier time against qualifier Lukasz Kubot, who beat Donald Young, who already taken out the much tougher opponent Feliciano Lopez. Strange. After that, Roddick gets either Mathieu or Ljubicic, which should be a good match on its own. The fourth quarter is also strong, with Verdasco seeded to meet Djokovic, but also featuring Victor Troicki, Nicolas Almagro, Robby Ginepri, and Juan Carlos Ferrero.

Back over in Tokyo, JMDP is seeded to meet Hewitt, which should be an interesting match - they've had a few great ones this year already. Santoro is also in that quarter, on his farewell tour. Simon and Berdych are in the second quarter, along with Bellucci and Youzhny. The third quarter features Wawrinka against Monfils, along with John Isner and Dudi Sela. The final quarter has seeds Stepanek and Tsonga, along with Richard Gasquet. Qualifying isn't done yet, but I'm hoping that Gulbis makes it in. Come on, Ernests!

So even though this draw isn't quite as strong, overall, it's still got some good matchups, and should produce some interesting tennis. Both of these tournaments should present an interesting picture of how the run-up to the end-of-year finals is going to go. Five spots have already been settled (Federer, Nadal, Murray, Djokovic, Del Potro) with the sixth nearly a sure thing (Roddick), but the last two are almost up for grabs.

The current top two, Davydenko and Tsonga, have a fair amount of points to defend in the coming weeks. Tsonga could actually drop down to 13 or 14 in a month. The next few (Verdasco, Simon, Soderling, and Gonzalez) all have a chance to grab one of those spots. Let's see how they do!