Although Federer has lacked the dominance that marked his game during the mid-to-late 2000s, people forget that he still has gaudy records against even very highly ranked players.

In Group B alone, Federer had a 14-1 record over Soderling, the vast majority of these matches played since 2008.  He had a 10-0 record over David Ferrer.  Only Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal have a winning record against Federer (of those that have played him more than 2-3 times).  This is all the more impressive given how Soderling is now number 4 in the world, and yet Federer has such a lopsided record.

Federer has been striking the ball pretty well, but Soderling knows that if he hits well, he can give anyone trouble.  Soderling’s problems occur when he is forced to run a lot. Then he sometimes makes mistakes because he is still trying to hit big shots.  Federer got a break in the middle of the first set, but Soderling was able to come back by essentially playing safe tennis and waiting for a Federer error.  However, as they went into tiebreak, Federer was able to get the early lead and win.

The second set remained close, but Federer was serving ahead and eventually got a break to lead 5-3 and a chance to win the set.  He hit two drop shots in the game and closed out the second set at 3.

Final score: 7-5, 6-3.

At this point, if Andy Murray wins, he’s in.  He’d have a 2-1 record, Soderling would be 1-2, and Ferrer would be 0-3.  If he loses, then he, Ferrer, and Soderling would all be 1-2.  If Andy wins a set, he’d be in by virtue of having won more sets (both Soderling and Ferrer lost their matches in straight sets).  If Ferrer wins in straight sets, Andy might still get in if he can enough games.  He lost very few games in his win over Soderling.

Unless Andy’s game is off, he should be able to beat Ferrer and move on.  Soderling has to hope for a Murray loss and a decidedly lopsided loss to get in, but if that happens, Ferrer might get in instead.  Soderling’s chances appear to be the slimmest of those not named Federer.

The scoring for the ATP World Tour Finals is interesting.  Each win in the round robin is worth 200 points, which is roughly the same as an ATP 250 event.  If you win the semifinals, that’s 400 points more.  So if Roger wins his semifinal, that’s like winning two ATP 250 events or one Masters 1000 event.  And if he wins the final, it’s like winning a Masters 1000 and an ATP 500, or the equivalent of 3/4 of a Slam.  Currently, Nadal could also achieve this since he has a 2-0 record in round-robin play.

A player like Andy Murray could win, at most, 1300 points (since he got 0 points for his loss to Federer).  The fewest points you could get is 1100 points for only winning 1 round robin match (200 pts) and then winning the title (900 pts).  That would be highly unlikely, but within the realm of possibility.