TENNIS in DEPTH.

Novak Djokovic brushed aside Roger Federer in straight sets to book himself a place in the final of the Mubadala World Tennis Championship exhibition in Abu Dhabi. Djokovic had complained of feeling rusty heading into the event but showed little sign of lethargy as he routed Federer for the loss of just three games. Indeed, such was the Serb’s dominance he needed less than an hour to complete victory, wrapping up a 6-2 6-1 success in just 44 minutes. Djokovic broke Federer twice in the first set and, at one point, reeled off nine games on the trot as he raced through a one-sided second. The end came when a lacklustre Federer drilled a forehand long, one of a string of unforced errors from the Swiss. ”It is the perfect start to season. I played great,” Djokovic said. “It’s something that makes me very happy.”

Rafeal Nadal showed his lack of motivation as he was easily beaten by fellow countryman David Ferrer 6-3, 6-2. Ferrer moves on to the final against Djokovic.

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David Ferrer, who has already qualified for the semi-finals, is the only player not to lose a set this week and after overcoming negative head-to-heads against his first two opponents this week, Murray and Djokovic, he can come into this match with some extra confidence. The Spaniard is 5-2 lifetime against Berdych, winning their past four meetings (and winning both of their hard court meetings as well). This match will be the ultimate decider of who will become the last player to qualify for the semi-finals at the year-end finale:

1.  If Ferrer defeats Berdych, Djokovic will qualify.

2. If Berdych defeats Ferrer and Djokovic loses (vs. Tipsarevic), Berdych will qualify.

3. If Berdych defeats Ferrer and Djokovic defeats Tipsarevic, Berdych will qualify unless Djokovic won his match in straight sets and Berdych was pushed to three sets before winning (in which case Djokovic qualifies).

Ferrer’s 63 61 win over Djokovic on Wednesday not only qualified him for the semi-finals, it was the equal-most lopsided win over a No. 1 in 28 and a half years – in a completed match, and in terms of games lost (in March 1983, Ivan Lendl lost a match, 61 62 – since then, nine times have players lost only four games in beating a No. 1, Ferrer’s win over Djokovic being the ninth time since then it has happened).

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David Ferrer followed up his victory over Andy Murray by thrashing an out-of-sorts Novak Djokovic 6-3 6-1 to reach the semi-finals of the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London. In many ways the world number five had been the outsider in Group A prior to the start of the O2 tournament and his win over Murray was overshadowed by the Scot’s subsequent withdrawal through injury. This setback was only Djokovic’s fifth defeat of the season but it really looked like his amazing year had caught up with him and he will now need to beat fellow Serbian Janko Tipsarevic on Friday to be sure of a place in the last four. Ferrer said: “Maybe it’s my best match this season. I enjoyed it a lot tonight. He was maybe a little bit tired and made some mistakes but I didn’t make any mistakes. This tournament is very important to me.”

The Spaniard had beaten Djokovic four times in their 10 meetings, but three of those had come on his favoured clay. The one time he did have success on indoor courts came at this tournament four years ago, though, when he went on to reach the final.

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Defending champion Andy Murray defeated David Ferrer 7-5 6-4 to win the Shanghai Masters, ensuring he will move above Roger Federer to No.3 in the ATP world rankings. It is a third straight title for the 24-year-old Scot, who had claimed consecutive tournament wins in Bangkok and Tokyo before heading to China. Currently ranked fourth, he has also won 25 of his 26 matches since mid-August, the only loss coming to Rafael Nadal in the semi-finals of the US Open. It will be the first time Federer has fallen out of the top three since June 2003, just before he won his first Wimbledon title. Coming into the match, Murray had won all four of his meetings with Ferrer on hard courts, including the semi-finals in Tokyo last week.

The first game of the match at the Qi Zhong stadium lasted nearly 10 minutes with a succession of lengthy baseline rallies before Murray broke the Ferrer serve – only for the world No.5 to break straight back in the second game. The rest of the first set went with serve until the Spaniard double-faulted in the 11th game to give second seed Murray another break and a 6-5 lead. Murray went on to seal the set with an ace. The second set started exactly as the first had, Murray taking the early break only for Ferrer to pull level at 1-1, with the Scot smashing a ball into the ground in frustration. But Ferrer missed a simple smash to hand Murray two break points in the following game and he made no mistake, hoisting up a winning lob from behind the baseline to win the game before serving out to seal the match and his eighth Masters title in an hour and 45 minutes. Asked about climbing to three in the world, Murray told Sky Sports: “It’s not something I aimed for at the start of the year. You want to try to finish at number one if you can. “After the US Open that wasn’t possible. I needed to reassess my goals. I wanted to finish the year at three if possible. I haven’t done that before. “That still isn’t complete. I’m still going to have to win some more matches to do that. “But the last three weeks have been very good. I’ve had a good mindset and fought really hard in all the matches. Here I got a bit tired but I wanted to keep the run going.

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Jo-Wilfried Tsonga enjoyed smooth progress into the second round of the US Open on Tuesday. The Frenchman, who famously came from two sets down to beat Roger Federer in SW19 earlier this summer, eased past Yen-Hsun Lu in New York, winning 6-4 6-4 6-4. Tsonga used his big-hitting game to fend off his Taiwanese opponent, smashing 39 winners past him on Flushing Meadows’ Grandstand court. Having broken serve once in each of the opening two sets, Tsonga looked set to wrap up victory when he raced 4-0 ahead in the third. However, Lu then produced his best tennis of the match to break Tsonga for the first time, but although he reduced the deficit to 4-3 another break proved beyond the world number 82. Tsonga, who also beat Federer in Montreal recently, could meet the Swiss again in the quarter-finals of this tournament, although he may first have to get past in-form American Mardy Fish at the last-16 stage.

Fifth seed David Ferrer had more of a struggle. He needed to come from a set down to see off Igor Andreev in four. The Spaniard made an awful start on Louis Armstrong Stadium but losing the first set seemed to give him the kick he needed. Ferrer, a semi-finalist in New York in 2007, turned things around to win 2-6 6-3 6-0 6-4.

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World No. 5 Soderling, appearing in his third straight Bastad final, earned 250 South African Airways 2011 ATP Rankings points and €72,600 in prize money, with victory in just 69 minutes. It was his fourth ATP World Tour title of the season. He is now 10-10 overall in title matches. The start of pair’s 14th meeting was delayed due to rain, but at 4:33 p.m. local time, action got underway on Centre Court. Soderling broke Ferrer to 15 in the first game and to 30 in the seventh game, before he clinched the 30-minute opener when Ferrer hit a backhand return into the net. Soderling lost five points on his serve and hit three aces in the first set.

Soderling could have taken a 5-0 second-set lead, but Ferrer saved three break points before securing his fifth game point. The Spaniard, who beat Nicolas Almagro for the 2007 title, broke Soderling to 15 in the next game. But Soderling regained his composure to break serve for a fifth time in the match. An ace, followed by a forehand winner earned Soderling his 38th match win of the year. The 26-year-old Soderling lost just 13 games in four matches at the ATP World Tour 250 clay-court tournament this week. In 2009, he beat Juan Monaco for the title and was runner-up to Almagro last year.

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David Ferrer did the deed well on Sunday, delivering Spain to the Davis Cup semifinal with a 75 76(3) 57 76 (5) win over Mardy Fish. Spain will play France with the home court advantage in September’s semifinals with defending champions Serbia hosting Argentina in the other semifinals. Ferrer’s victory provided Spain with an insurmountable 3-1 lead over the United States.

On Friday, Feliciano Lopez beat Fish 64 36 63 67(2) 86, and Ferrer upended Andy Roddick 76(9) 75 63 in his hometown of Austin, Texas, to give Spain a 2-0 lead after the first day of action.

On Saturday, the top-ranked doubles team of Bob and Mike Bryan kept the Americans alive with a 67(3) 64 64 64 win over Marcel Granollers and Fernando Verdasco. But the reprieve for the United States was brief. Ferrer showed why he’s been a top 10 player for the past number of years as he out-muscled Fish.

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Playing in the U.S. didn’t work in Mardy Fish’s favour. He fought a tough battle against fellow recent Wimbledon quarterfinalist Feliciano Lopez, but suffered a 46 63 36 76(2) 86 loss. Playing in his hometown of Austin, Texas, didn’t deliver good fortune for Andy Roddick either. The former US Open champion couldn’t hold up against the dogged David Ferrer, who scored a 76(9) 75 63 win. “I have too much respect for Ferrer to act like I’m stunned,” Roddick said. “The guy is six in the world for a reason. He played well. I thought I played pretty well for the first two sets, but the third set got away from me a little bit… He beat me tonight.”

There was much talk leading up to this tie about the fast hard court surface the Americans selected – they were hoping it would come off feeling like a slippery ice skating rink to the Spaniards. But, at least after the first day of play, the Spanish team seemed to adjust well to the court without having ice skates strapped on their feet. “Of course, this is not our best surface,” said Albert Costa, the Spanish captain. “We never (would) choose this surface at home. But these guys are very good. They have the talent to play in all kind of surfaces…. But we have to know that still is a lot of work to do. Nothing is over yet, for sure. So we have to fight a lot.”

The last time USA came back from 0-2 down was against Australia in 1934, which proves how difficult it is to climb out of such a deficit. But the lack of success on the opening day – and history not in the American corner – has not dashed the hopes of the American team to turn the tie around. “Obviously it’s an uphill battle,” Roddick said. “We’re not going to be the favorites down 0-2. (But) we’re not out of this.”

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