Heading into London, the big question was “How healthy is Djokovic?”.  Djokovic lost to Nishikori in the semis of Basel when it was clear that Djokovic was struggling with his shoulder.  Djokovic then withdrew against Tsonga in the quarterfinals of Paris.  It could simply have been Djokovic saving himself for London.

That question was answered pretty quickly.  Djokovic, at least for now, seems fine.  He was fine early in Paris as well, but the question is: Can Djokovic survive two more matches?

Berdych started this match on fire, breaking Djokovic twice to start the match.  Perhaps no one on tour hits as effortlessly as Berdych.  He takes a nice relaxed swing and the balls comes rocketing with force.  When Berdych is on his game, he can hit inside out and sharp crosscourt with equal ease.  He has a very good serve as well.  However, Berdych has struggled with consistency.  Because he hits the ball pretty flat, he’ll occasionally misfire and this allows players ranked below him to stay even with him.

Djokovic got one of the breaks back, and then it was nip and tuck as Berdych managed to hold serve just enough to win the first set 6-3. This was all the more impressive because Berdych was making fewer than half his serves in.  However, he was winning more than half his points on second serve to compensate.

But Djokovic, having had such a great year, continued to strike the ball well, in a match that was much better than the Ferrer-Murray match earlier in the day.  Djokovic got an early break in the second set and kept that lead to win the second set, 6-3.

Surprisingly, the two kept even in the third set.  Berdych then played a very solid game to break serve, and it seemed like the world number 1 might lose once again.  However, Berdych did not play a good game and could not consolidate the break, and the set was back on serve.  Berdych began to serve much better and held his serve relatively easily.  He even had a chance to win the match with a break point on Djokovic’s serve but Djokovic played a solid point to defuse the threat and push the match into a tiebreak.

Alas, the tiebreak between Djokovic and Berdych resembled the tiebreak between Fish and Nadal.  The difference was Berdych’s desire to play aggressive on his own serve and losing pretty much every point he served.  He did get two points off Djokovic’s serve, but it wasn’t enough as Djokovic hit a big serve to seal the third set tiebreak, 7 points to 3.

This match was fairly entertaining with Berdych playing very good, and Djokovic playing solid, managing to prevent Berdych from racing off with the match.

Andy Murray said that he is suffering from a groin injury and may have to drop out from the tournament.  He will wait until tomorrow to make a decision.  If Murray does withdraw, Janko Tipsarevic would take his place.  This would also make Federer’s chances to end the year at number 3 a bit more reasonable.  Federer could regain number 3 by reaching the finals.  At minimum, he would gain 800 points, though he would need to win one more match in round-robin play to guarantee the points.  He would have 400 points from two round-robin wins (he has one now), and 400 more for reaching the finals. This would exceed the 710 point deficit he has to Murray.

Should Murray decide to play and somehow win a match, he would push his lead to 910 points.  That would force Federer to either sweep the round-robin and get to the finals or to win the event to reach number 3.  If Murray wins 2 matches, then Federer would have to win London to overtake Murray.

Right now, all this seems pretty iffy.

The one player that stands to benefit the most from Murray’s predicament is David Ferrer.  He is the only player that has played so far that has not dropped a set.  Djokovic dropped one to Berdych.  Ferrer does lead the head-to-head, 5-2, with Berdych though they’ve played once in the last 4 years (Ferrer won that match).

The ATP gave out some awards.  Milos Raonic was the newcomer of the year.  Juan Martin del Potro was comeback player of the year.  Alex Bogomolov was most improved player.  Federer won the sportsmanship award again.