WORLD TOUR FINALS GROUPS ANNOUNCED: FEDERER IN TOUGH ONE WITH MURRAY BY RICKY DIMON

Written by: Staff on 3rd November 2014

BNP Paribas 2014 Masters Tennis Tournament

WORLD TOUR FINALS GROUPS ANNOUNCED: FEDERER IN TOUGH ONE WITH MURRAY BY RICKY DIMON

epa04471398 Roger Federer of Switzerland returns the ball to Milos Raonic of Canada during his quarter final match at the BNP Paribas 2014 Masters tennis tournament in Paris, France, 31 October 2014. EPA/IAN LANGSDON |

The World Tour Finals draw ceremony was held on Monday afternoon. With only eight players in the field, it did not take long for everything to be figured out. Novak Djokovic was already guaranteed to be in Group A as the No. 1 player in the world and No. 1 seed, while Roger Federer was assured of being in Group B at No. 2. That left only six men to be drawn.

After just a few minutes, a brutal Group B emerged. On the other side, Djokovic found himself with a seemingly favorable draw in Group B. Federer is joined by Kei Nishikori, Andy Murray, and Milos Raonic. Djokovic will contested round-robin matches against Stan Wawrinka, Tomas Berdych, and Marin Cilic.

Cilic, the U.S. Open champion, was on hand for the proceedings and was asked prior to the draw if he would prefer being in Djokovic’s group or in Federer’s. Instead of avoiding the question like most players would, the Croat answered it point blank.

“I would rather be in Roger’s group,” Cilic admitted.

And why not? The world No. 9 has not been good against either one, but he scored his first-ever win over Federer in the U.S. Open semifinals with a dominant 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 performance. Cilic is 1-5 lifetime against the Swiss, whereas he is a dreadful 0-10 versus Djokovic.

Of course, Cilic is not alone in his struggles against the Serb. The other two Group A competitors–Wawrinka and Berdych–are almost as woeful. Wawrinka is 3-15 in 18 meetings with Djokovic and Berdych is 2-16. That means Djokovic is a combined 41-5 in his career vs. his three round-robin adversaries.

Federer, meanwhile, owns a winning record at the expense of just one of his Group B opponents (Raonic, against whom the 17-time major champion is 6-1). At the same time, Federer has a losing record against none of the three. He is 11-11 vs. Murray and 2-2 vs. Nishikori.

Nishikori and Murray will open the singles action on Sunday afternoon. Federer and Raonic will wrap up Day 1 of Group B action on Sunday night in a rematch of a recent Paris quarterfinal, won by Raonic 7-6(5), 7-5. Monday afternoon will see Wawrinka face Berdych, while Djokovic vs. Cilic headlines the Monday night session.

Andy Murray of Great Britain returns the ball to David Ferrer of Spain during their final match of the Erste Bank Open ATP tennis tournament in Vienna, Austria, 19 October 2014. EPA/GEORG HOCHMUTH

Ricky contributes to 10sballs.com and also maintains his own tennis website, The Grandstand.

Topics: Andy Murray, Atp, Kei Nishikori, Marin Cilic, milos raonic, Novak Djokovic, Ricky Dimon, Roger Federer, Stan Wawrinka, Tennis, Tennis News, Tomas Berdych, World Tour Finals

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10sBalls_com says:

November 3, 2014 at 12:23 pm

WORLD TOUR FINALS GROUPS ANNOUNCED: @rogerfederer IN TOUGH ONE WITH @andy_murray BY @RD_Tennistalk- http://t.co/ukUdvZffOe #tennis #ATP
RD_Tennistalk says:

November 3, 2014 at 4:00 pm

RT @10sBalls_com: WORLD TOUR FINALS GROUPS ANNOUNCED: @rogerfederer IN TOUGH ONE WITH @andy_murray BY @RD_Tennistalk- http://t.co/ukUdvZff…