Nadal beats Wawrinka,seals year-end No.1 spot

His straight-sets victory means 13-times grand-slam champion Nadal is assured of a semi-final spot at the event which he has never won,while tournament debutant Wawrinka can also still make the last four if he beats Ferrer on Friday.

Nadal served for the first set at 5-4 but Wawrinka broke with some dazzling attacking play and then went toe to toe with the top seed in the tiebreak before an unfortunate stumble as he approached the net at 5-6 down allowed Nadal to crunch a forehand winner away and pocket the opener.

Wawrinka delighted the crowd as he battled back from 4-1 down in the second set and seemed poised to take it to a decider when he held a set point in another tense tiebreak only to succumb to Nadal for the 12th time in their 12 meetings,during which he has never won a set.

Flashes of Brilliance

ROGER Federer showed flashes of his best but Novak Djokovic exposed the Swiss maestro’s fading powers with a three-set victory at the ATP World Tour Finals on Tuesday. World number two Djokovic,at 26 six years Federer’s junior,briefly looked in trouble midway through an absorbing Group B opener but eventually surged to a 6-4 6-7(2) 6-2 win in front of another sell-out crowd at the O2 Arena.

This was his 18th win in a row since losing to Rafa Nadal in the US Open final. The 31st clash between the two never quite reached a crescendo as Federer showed he is struggling to maintain the intensity needed to get the better of the top guns in world tennis.

With the majority of the 17,000 crowd,many dressed in Swiss red and wearing Federer-branded clothing,roaring on the 32-year-old he battled back from the disappointment of dropping serve in the 10th game to lose the first,levelling the match with a sublime tiebreak which he won 7-2.

After spluttering into life,however,Federer lost his spark in the deciding set as Djokovic repeated his victory over the Swiss in Paris at the weekend. It’s slow here and it’s the first match,so there’s going to be errors, Federer,who had not lost his opening match at the Tour Finals since 2008 said. You have to take a lot of chances to get the ball past Novak. Eventually that draws errors out of you.

Defending champion Djokovic,who was in action in Paris until Sunday and had precious little time to adapt to the conditions in London,looked weary at the end of the second set but struck back immediately at the start of the decider. Federer’s resistance melted away after he had been broken to love in the first game of the decider and there was no way back when he surrendered serve again to trail 4-1.

Federer,who has won a record six titles at the year-ender,remained hopeful of beating Richard Gasquet on Thursday to keep alive his hopes of ending a disappointing year on a high. Djokovic will face Juan Martin del Potro on Thursday and said he was relieved to survive a tough opener.

Paes-stepanek lose

Leander Paes and his Czech partner Radek Stepanek lost their second Group B match to David Marrero and Fernando Verdasco,a defeat which has made their road to semifinals at the year-end ATP World Tour finals tougher.

The seventh seeded Indo-Czech pair fought hard before losing 4-6 6-7 (5) to their Spanish rivals in one hour and 29 minutes. Now Paes and Stepanek,the US Open winners,must beat Marcel Granollers and Mark Lopez for making it to the next stage without any favour from other teams.