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If you can forgive us a moment to revel in the first three-set match when super-sub David Ferrer stepped in for an injured Milos Raonic to give Kei Nishikori a workout, we arrive at the last of the round robins, as the Group A boys being what feels like the first week of a Grand Slam to a close.
It started so promisingly, as Stan Wawrinka started with the same confident free-swinging style as he had against Tomas Berdych in the first round robin match. Surely a mate against the two winners of the first matches would yield our most competitive match to date.
For the non-mathematically minded, all we really want is a simple “win this or go home” scenario, as we look ahead at the final round robin matches for Group B. We kick off on Thursday with the battle of the rookies. Kei Nishikori had to work to overcome his nerves in his opener, when he edged the home-town favourite Andy Murray in the first match.
With all the feeling of one of those Grand Slams that insist on playing first round matches for the entire first week, the search for match of note continued on Tuesday after the curse of the breadstick score-lines.
Whilst it is easy to ridicule the Group A score-lines, surely Wednesday will yield at least one match with a more complex score-line? Let’s take a look at the candidates as the winners and losers do battle.
It’s what all the cool kids do. Such can be the lottery of ticket-buying for the World Tour Finals, you have to feel for ticket holders for either the day session, the night session or, heaven forefend, both sessions on Day 2, when the crowd were treated to two one-sided encounters that both ended in an hour (but remember, tube time, so bonus).
Now we have had the first rounds, it will be time to get the calculators out, take shoes and socks off to work out all the possible permutations as the two winners and the two losers of the first two matches (still with me?) get to grips in round two.
It all started so relaxed with British No. 1 and home-crowd hero Andy Murray looking relaxed and posing for photographs with waiting fans at the quay where the players arrive by boat. There were rousing cheers, there was an early break – oh it was all going so well.
Well with a day one result (and indeed a shirt) that was as grey as the conditions on a gloomy Sunday, the crowds will return to the giant umbrella once more to see World No. 1 and new daddy Novak Djokovic against the wonderfully unassuming Marin Cilic.
It’s raining, it’s pouring – isn’t that how the nursery rhyme goes. Oh we are sure there is some historical significance to the lines, but really what it all comes down to is this. On Sunday we can all race into the cavernous dome that is the O2 which is, let’s face it, the shape of a giant umbrella – handy.
Greetings from London. It's cold , it's damp , rain is expected , welcome to London. But when you are @ the ATP championships who cares ? Big Ben is our alarm clock ! The London EYE is in our view and the town is tennis crazy. Sounds like I'm in the right place. From the moment the car came to collect us ( thank you Richard Branson ) the magic carpet ride began.
Apart from a strange, brief and eventually irrelevant period midway through the first set when his opponent won eight consecutive points, Novak Djokovic was rarely troubled as he retained his BNP Paribas Masters title here at Bercy with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Milos Raonic.
Novak Djokovic, looking like the world No 1 and Milos Roanic, who is starting to look as if he wants to challenge for that position, will face off in the final of the BNP Paribas Masters here on Sunday.
Milos Raonic, clinging on to the possibility of making the top eight for the ATP Finals in London, finally worked out a way to beat Roger Federer in the quarter-finals of the BNP Paribas Masters here, winning a tight struggle 7-6, 7-5.
A little clarity emerged from the rubble of the Omnipalais here at Bercy as Andy Murray confirmed his place in the ATP Finals in London by eliminating one of the contenders, Grigor Dimitrov 6-3, 6-3. It has been hard to find one’s way around this stadium this week as the whole place is under construction and work has only stopped for ten days...
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