During the Asian swing, Andy Murray made a bold proclamation.  He said he wanted to finish the year as the world number 3.  Some would say that’s a wimpy statement.  However, Djokovic had paced the field with 3 Slam wins and 5 Masters 1000.  It was out of the question for Murray to accumulate enough points to even come close to overtaking Djokovic, and the same was true of overtaking Nadal.

But what was in sight was overtaking Federer.  Federer had played very well at the end of 2010, and had points to defend.  He announced quite early that he was on that he was not defending Stockholm or, more properly, he just didn’t sign up for Stockholm.  Indeed, he only played Stockholm last year, an event he hadn’t played in nearly a decade, because he wanted to tie Pete Sampras’s career titles there so he could beat the record at Basel, his hometown tournament.  He did both.  After the US Open, he also decided to not play Shanghai, citing the need to rest and recover to end the year well.

That meant Federer planned to drop two of his results, Basel and Stockholm, which would erase 750 points between him and Murray.  Murray would also go on a hot streak winning Bangkok, Tokyo, and Shanghai.  He picked up 1750 points form this.  However, he already had 1000 points from defending Shanghai.  Even so, by the time Stockholm was completed, Murray had moved to the world number 3.

Murray took a wildcard into Basel, hoping to stretch his lead.  If he could pick up 1000 points between Basel and Paris, he could ensure himself as the number 3 in the world.  However, 1000 points is a lot to earn.  Between Basel and Paris, the winners take 1500 points.   Even so, Federer had to do well in Basel and Paris.  If he fell short, especially in Paris, he would lose even more ground to Murray making it nearly impossible for him to catch Murray.

Indeed, with Murray in Basel and Djokovic in Basel, the idea was for Murray to meet Federer in the semis, and if he wasn’t tough enough to beat Federer, then maybe Djokovic in the finals.   The problem?  Murray never got to play a single round in Basel.  He had an injury and had to withdraw from Basel.  The injury was short-lived, so he headed off to Paris. Furthermore, Djokovic wasn’t 100%.  He lost in the semis to Nishikori when his shoulder bothered him again.  Thus, Federer was able to win Basel without playing either Murray or Djokovic.

Then, there was Paris.  Murray did play pretty well, but he wasn’t showing the same form that he used to win Shanghai.  He did manhandle Andy Roddick in a brilliant win.  However, Berdych had an exhibition of power and precision against Murray who could never quite get his offense in gear.  Murray played the entire match in mostly defensive mode and lost in three sets.

Federer, for his part, had a two-part test to beat the two players that had given him problems the last two years, and both were in good form.  He pushed Berdych around the court in the semifinals, using his typical aggressive hitting to hit to the sidelines and force Berdych to play defense.  Federer won that match comfortably.

Having passed the first set, Federer came out on fire against Tsonga, winning the first set easily.  He was pushed to a tiebreak in the second set, but won the tiebreak comfortably to win his first Paris Masters 1000 title of his career (it was also his first final).  With the 1000 points he picked up in Paris, Federer was within 710 points of Andy Murray, which meant if he reached the finals at the year-end championships and won two rounds in the round-robin, he would become number 3.

London then turned out nothing as expected.  Although there was a thought it might be like 2010 where the top four players made it to the semis.

Murray seemed to be getting his game back in gear.  He lost somewhat early in Paris but would have a week to train.  Djokovic withdrew from Paris, but the thought was he was saving himself for London.  Even so, of the top four, he seemed in the most trouble.  Rafael Nadal had taken a month off to train and skipped Paris once again.

Nadal had said, in a post-match interview in Shanghai, that somehow, despite feeling fine, that his game or head wasn’t quite in the game.  He compared his state of mind from the previous year.  In 2010 Shanghai, Nadal lost to Melzer early on.  Melzer apparently played very aggressively in that match.  However, Nadal acknowledged he was very tired coming into Shanghai last year.  He said, this year, he was feeling pretty good, but he wasn’t playing that well.  Against Mayer, Nadal had no real break opportunities, and clearly, without a break, you’re making life tough.

Nadal decided to skip the European part of the tour completely, trying to train for London, a title he’d never won, and Davis Cup.  Last year, he did the same, and he played very well sweeping the round-robin.  This year, he didn’t look the same.

First, Nadal was in a tough fight with Fish in his opening round robin match.  Fish was very motivated to play well.  This was his first year-end championship.  Fish had hamstring issues that caused him to lose early in Basel and Paris, retiring in two consecutive tournaments.  He was able to take a set off Nadal playing aggressive, then kept even in the third, despite opportunities by Nadal to break, and then played an awful tiebreak to hand the match to Nadal.  Despite all this, Nadal looked shaky and less than his dominating self.

Then, Federer put the beatdown on Nadal in the second round-robin match, playing one of his best matches ever against his rival.  Federer crushed Nadal.  Tsonga was able to attack Nadal in Nadal’s third round robin match, and while his aggression went a little wonky in the second set, it began to pay off in the third set where he broke Nadal twice.  Again, Nadal had no words to explain why he wasn’t playing well, although the surface clearly is Nadal’s weakest.  High-risk, high-reward players like Tsonga love indoors.  It removes the conditions (wind, sun, heat/cold, bad bounces) from the equation, plus with fast court speeds, it gives a great deal of predictability to players that have small margins of errors.  Thus, Tsonga could get into the match, while Nadal struggled.

Djokovic also struggled in his opening match against Berdych.  Honestly, Berdych played great tennis to take Djokovic to three sets.  He even had a match point, but Djokovic played great in that point.  In the tiebreak, Berdych played way too aggressive on his serve and made way too many errors, and handed the match to Djokovic.  Djokovic must have known that if he was going to secure a victory, it would be in his first match, because he would have the most rest in that match.

In Basel and Paris, Djokovic was fine for two matches, but struggled after that with consecutive days of play.  Djokovic appeared to need at least one day of rest between matches, but this late in the year, it wasn’t even certain that the extra day of rest would help.

Against Ferrer, Djokovic started fine, but then he became an error-prone machine, unable to be aggressive on points, and unable to outlast the Spaniard.  With the straight set lost, Djokovic then had to play his compatriot, Janko Tipsarevic, who came into the tournament when Murray dropped out on Tuesday, the day after his first round-robin loss to Ferrer.  Tipsarevic had been having his best year, and reached the top ten for the first time.  Who would have thought?  Two Serbs in the top ten, and only one American?

Djokovic started the first set against Tipsarevic in excellent form, but by the second set, that form was going away while Tipsarevic was starting to play more confidently.  Tipsarevic finally managed to beat his Davis Cup teammate and took the third set.  Despite the 1-2 predicament, Djokovic still had a chance to qualify because Ferrer was favored to beat Berdych.  Had Ferrer done so, Berdych would be 1-2 and Djokovic would own the head-to-head tiebreak.

And though Ferrer made a game attempt at winning, having a set and a break, Berdych hung tough until the rest of his game came together, and took a dominating third set to ensure his place in the semifinals.

So number 1 Djokovic lost two matches, and probably should thank Berdych for winning as he would probably have lost to Federer.  Djokovic did play better against Tipsarevic, but an in-form Djokovic would have beaten Tipsarevic, so an out-of-form Djokovic likely would have fallen to Federer, giving him 3 losses in the same tournament.  One of the drawbacks of a round-robin tournament is that you can rack on a lot of losses.  In regular tournaments, you can only lose once.

Number 2 Nadal looked solid, but not intimidating, and lost two of three matches.  Number 3 Murray didn’t even get to play a second match.  Meanwhile, Federer, the hottest player heading into London, continued his very good play and has to be patting himself on the back for knowing his body so well that he skipped Shanghai.  It seems Djokovic was not ready to come back, and Murray was a victim of bad luck, once again.  Perhaps in his eagerness to be number 3, Murray overtrained and caused himself injury.

So today’s match pitted Roger Federer against David Ferrer.  Ferrer had not beaten Federer in 11 attempts.  Ferrer knew this was going to be tough.  Unlike Murray and Djokovic, Federer was playing well.  Ferrer doesn’t hit lots of winners.  He leans on his inside-out forehand to attack a righty’s backhand.  Ferrer isn’t nearly as defensive as he appears.  He’s trying to play offense which is why you see him slap the net with an error.  But he lacks full on power to hit winners like Tsonga or Berdych, so the best he can do, most times, is to pressure and be steady.

Federer hasn’t looked nearly as good as he did against Nadal, which suggests that playing a great match is a tiring thing.  Thus, Murray played Nadal brilliantly in Tokyo and Federer played Nadal brilliantly in the round-robin, yet, they can’t sustain this brilliance match after match.  Federer, in particular, didn’t look nearly as solid against Fish, but played well when it mattered.  The same could be said against Ferrer.  Except Federer knows that he can handle what Ferrer dishes out.  As steady as Ferrer is, he’ll cough up errors because he’s not pushing the ball.

The two played even in the first set.  Ferrer had a chance at 4-5 to possibly break Federer.  The game went to multiple deuces, but Ferrer hit errors every time there was a break point.  Federer then held serve, then broke Ferrer and held to take the second set.

Federer broke for a 2-0 lead right off the bat.  Both held serve.  Then, at 3-1 down, Ferrer then was in danger of going double break down 15-40.  However, he won a series of points to hold serve.  It was all for naught.  Federer continued to hold serve easily, and then secured a second break to take the second set, 6-3.

Ferrer can take pride in getting to the semifinals in the first place.  In any case, he’ll need to take a quick flight to Spain and begin training for Davis Cup in about a week.  One would think that a tired Ferrer and a listless Nadal would be ripe for the picking, but neither del Potro nor Nalbandian, Spain’s likely opponents in the Davis Cup finals. looks like they are playing all that well at the end of the year.  Both skipped tournaments at the end of the year and need to heal and practice.  Indeed, the Argentine who looks in best form is Juan Monaco who lost to Granollers in the finals of Valencia.  But few expect Monaco to play, unless it’s to sub for Nalbandian.

The other semis is harder to call.  Berdych takes on Tsonga.  I think it will depend on Berdych.  If he plays well, he has an edge on Tsonga.  If not, Tsonga should be solid enough to beat Berdych.  Berdych is so much more up and down than Tsonga on a good day.  This could be a great match.

Until then, one more day until the last official tournament (excluding Davis Cup) is completed.  Then, it’s 5 weeks off until it starts all over again!