London, November 12
Rafael Nadal refused to make excuses after being outplayed by defending champion Alexander Zverev at the ATP Finals as Stefanos Tsitsipas got his campaign off to a flying start.
The Spanish top seed, who has never won the season-ending event, came into the tournament at London’s O2 Arena under an injury cloud and was well short of his imperious best as he went down 6-2 6-4 on Monday.
In the earlier round-robin match in Group Andre Agassi, sixth seed Tsitsipas beat Daniil Medvedev 7-6(7) 6-4, admitting their spiky relationship had made his job tougher.
Nadal is locked in a battle with Novak Djokovic to finish as the year-end No. 1 but was not serving flat out in the practice last week due to an abdominal strain that forced him to pull out of the Paris Masters in the semifinals stage.
The 33-year-old led Germany’s Zverev 5-0 in head-to-head contests coming into the match but was uncharacteristically sloppy in the first set, conceding two breaks of serve. Buoyed by his dominant start, Zverev, seeded seventh, broke in the first game of the second set to take an iron grip on the match.
Nadal dug deep, urging himself on but his 22-year-old opponent proved too strong. He did not concede a single break point in the entire match.
Federer rebounds
Roger Federer got back on track with a 7-6(2) 6-3 defeat of Italian Matteo Berrettini today.
Defeat by Dominic Thiem in his opening round-robin match on Sunday has left the six-time champion facing an early exit, but he responded in emphatic fashion.
Berrettini was also coming off a heavy defeat by Novak Djokovic in his first appearance at the event, and the 23-year-old showed why he has made such an impact this year as he pushed Federer hard in the opening set.
He saved a set point at 5-6 but Federer squeezed the accelerator to win 10 of 11 points as he cruised through the tiebreak and broke to love at the start of the second.
Berrettini, the first Italian to qualify for the tournament since 1978, had three break points in the eighth game but Federer served his way out of trouble and the 38-year-old Swiss then broke to claim victory.
Incredibly Federer is now 17-0 in second round-robin matches at the tournament but he is likely to need a victory over Djokovic on Thursday to reach the semifinals. Only once in his previous 16 appearances at the year-ender has Federer failed to survive the group stage, in 2008. Djokovic is looking to equal Federer’s record of six titles and claim back the world No. 1 ranking from Nadal. — Agencies
1 Only once Roger Federer has failed to survive the group stage in his previous 16 appearances at the year-ender. That was way back in 2008
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via Today’s News Headlines
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