ATP Tour Finals - O2

Tuesday 22nd November


Mardy Fish has had a stella year. He's reached his highest ever ranking, ousted Roddick as America's number 1 and saw a quarter final of a Slam for the first time. He's playing in the World Tour Finals for the first (and, dare I say it, possibly the last...) time and he's not let himself down. He was brilliant against Nadal, only missing out by a point or two. Some of his shots were breathtaking.


Today he played Tsonga and needed to win to have any chance of going through to the semi finals. The first set was a tight affair, with momentum swinging this way and that. It went to a tie-break and Fish made one too many mistakes as Tsonga wrestled the set into submission. Fish seemed to lose faith after that and apart from a couple of flashes of his previous brilliance he was beaten easily by the hard-hitting and very smiley Frenchman.


Fish will have a last hurrah against the mighty Fed on Thursday and then he goes home for Christmas and training for the new season. Tsonga, meanwhile, will play Nadal - winner takes all.


The night match was a masterclass. A look back into the past where one man was absolutely unbeatable. He was graceful, elegant, stylish, unplayable, incredible and astonishing. I know, too many verbs, but it was that good. Federer's destruction of Nadal was a match that will go down in the history books. Federer himself said of the match that it was highly ranked because it was against one of his biggest rivals and that he was excited about the way he played. The 30-year-olds 26th meeting with Nadal was set up as THE match of the tournament so far. The fans were looking for some brilliance, especially after the news of Murray's withdrawal, but nobody could have predicted the level of play Federer brought.


He beat a confounded Nadal 6-3 6-0, and hit 28 winners to Nadal's 4. He won 85% points off his first serve and afforded Nadal not a single break point. He was, as Nadal graciously pointed out afterwards, 'too good'.


I'll keep you blogged...