In 2007, David Ferrer burst on the scene at the year-end championship. Then, it was held in Shanghai and still called the Tennis Masters Cup. Ferrer went undefeated in round robin play as the 6th seed beating Nadal, Djokovic, and Gasquet. He crushed Roddick in the semifinals, but lost rather tamely to Federer in the finals.
Last year, by contrast, Ferrer lost all three matches and went winless.
Most people expected Ferrer to duplicate the results of last year. He might only be favored against Tomas Berdych, the one player ranked lower than him. He wasn’t expected to beat Andy Murray in the opening round, but Murray was hurt, and had his chances to win despite the injury. He also wasn’t expected to beat Djokovic.
Djokovic really played poorly while Ferrer played like Ferrer usually does. He runs down shots. He plays lots of balls. He tries to pressure with his forehand. In particular, any time the rallies were extended, Djokovic coughed up errors. The tally showed that Djokovic hit 33 errors, three times what his opponents hit. Ferrer was also hitting his serve pretty well which made it tough for Djokovic to overcome.
Once Ferrer reached double-break in the second set, Djokovic seemed to lose will to fight, unable to solve the riddle of his unforced errors. Final score: 63, 61.
With this final result, Ferrer is 2-0 in Group A, and is undefeated. This means he’ll get into the semifinals, and will be the top player coming out of Group A. Every other player has dropped a set in their victories. Berdych dropped a set against Tipsarevic. Djokovic dropped a set against Berdych. Tipsarevic won’t be able to qualify since he can only gain one victory. The rules state that if there’s a 3-way tie and there are three players with 1-2 records, the player that plays fewer than 3 matches is automatically eliminated.
So it’s come down to how Djokovic and Berdych plays on Friday to decide who gets in. If Djokovic gets in, then he would play Federer in the semifinals, and this would be Andy Murray’s best bet to become number 3 as Djokovic’s chances to beat Federer is probably still the best. This would assume Djokovic finds some form between now and the semifinals. If not, Federer may have a nice road to the title.
This is Djokovic’s fifth loss of the year. He’s lost to Federer at the French, Murray at Cincy, del Potro in Davis Cup, Nishikori in Basel, and now Ferrer at London.