ATP Finals London: Semifinals! Federer sends Djokovic home
Roger Federer moved in as the third player in the semi-finals of the ATP Finals 2019. The Swiss defeated Novak Djokovic in straight sets. With this defeat, the Serb can no longer become number one at the end of the year.
by Jens Huiber
last edit: Nov 15, 2019, 08:57 am
By Jens Huiber from London
Anyone who had made a quick decision to go to the O2 Arena in the past few days to see some world-class tennis would not have a problem getting tickets late. It does not matter if in the first or the second session. On Thursday night, however, at the decisive group match between Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer for the semi-finals at the ATP Finals 2019, none of the 17,800 seats remained unoccupied.
And the visitors saw an amazing match - with an unexpected outcome: in the end Federer won 6: 4 and 6: 3. And thus moved into the semifinals of the season final tournament.
Djokovic paved the way for the first break of the match with two double failures at the score of 1: 1 - after the Serb had to fend off an opportunity in the very first service match. Federer held the lead to 5: 4 without problems, thanks to a much improved performance compared to the appearance against Dominic Thiem. Above all, the impact prepared Djokovic, in the general assessment of the best return players in the world, enormous problems. After 35 minutes Federer finished the first round befitting with an ace.
Federer makes his first break in the second set
Djokovic and Federer had played each other 48 times before this duel, 26 of these duels went to the Serbs. Federer's last victory was from the ATP finals in 2015, but the epic Wimbledon final from last summer, in which Federer was unable to use two match points, was noticeably fresher.
Passage two started again with two break chances for the Swiss - Djokovic parried the attack. Like Federer at the score of 1: 2. In the following game, however, it was time: The 38-year-old from Basel made the break to 3: 2. And had three match points at 5: 3 and serve Djokovic. Immediately the first one led to the goal.
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Thiem and Tsitsipas already in the semifinals
Even before the match, Dominic Thiem was the first semi-finalist from the Björn Borg group. The Austrian defeated Federer and Djokovic and lost 6: 7 (3) and 3: 6 in the meaningless match against Matteo Berrettini. So far, only Stefanos Tsitsipas has qualified for the semi-final from the group Andre Agassi. On Friday, Rafael Nadal, Alexander Zverev and Daniil Medvedev all still have the chance to follow the Greeks.