World Tour Finals: Novak Djokovic destroys Stan Wawrinka
- Published
ATP World Tour Finals, O2 Arena London, 9-16 November |
Coverage: Afternoon sessions (14:00 GMT) and first semi-final (14:00 GMT) on BBC Two & BBC website, final on BBC Three & BBC website (19:00 GMT); live commentary of each match on 5 live sports extra, live text commentary on BBC website |
Novak Djokovic produced another scintillating performance to beat Stan Wawrinka at the ATP World Tour Finals.
The world number one recovered from losing the first two games to win 12 of the next 13 in a 6-3 6-0 win.
He has not lost at the O2 Arena since 2011 and is now unbeaten in 29 matches indoors.
Djokovic remains top of Group A with his final round-robin match against Tomas Berdych to come.
The Serb will guarantee the year-end number one ranking with another win on Friday, and it is hard to see who can stop him claiming a hat-trick of ATP World Tour Finals titles on Sunday.
"Obviously Stan wasn't feeling his best today," said Djokovic. "He made a lot of unforced errors, a low percentage of first serves in.
"On my side, I just played very solid from all over the court. I think I covered the court very well, got a lot of balls back, mixed up the pace, got him off the comfort zone. That's something that was part of my game plan.
"After I lost the first two games, obviously I didn't start so great. I thought he played very well the first two games. But I wasn't frustrated, I kept my calm.
"After that, it was a really amazing performance."
British Davis Cup doubles player Colin Fleming on BBC Radio 5 live sports extra |
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"From a competitive point of view, the start of the match was exactly what you want to see, but it just turned so quickly. Wawrinka seemed to lose his focus straight away. I think the problem is that for Wawrinka to win these matches he has to be an eight or nine out of 10, finding his targets with no margin for error." |
Wawrinka went into Wednesday's evening session knowing victory would secure him a place in the last four, and he started the more confident player.
Two flowing forehand winners helped the Swiss break in the opening game and he saw off a break point in the second with a big serve.
He had ended a 14-match losing streak against Djokovic on his way to victory at the Australian Open in January, but if Wawrinka had dared begin contemplating a second straight win, he was soon jolted back to reality.
A poor game including a double fault and a framed backhand gave Djokovic the break back to love, and from that moment the Swiss struggled to win points, let alone games.
Handed a way back into the contest, the pace of Djokovic's movement and ball-striking simply left Wawrinka floundering.
Djokovic, the two-time defending champion, got to within a game of beating Berdych 6-0 6-0 last month and he was now in similarly ruthless mood.
A disoriented Wawrinka sent a backhand long to drop serve at the start of the second set, and Djokovic had the 17,000 spectators roaring after one terrific forehand winner on the slide for 2-0.
It was all over after 65 minutes when Djokovic capped a performance he would later describe as "10 out of 10" with a breathtaking forehand winner down the line.
Five breaks of serve, just seven points dropped in the second set, 16 successful trips to the net - which would have pleased watching coach Boris Becker - and 12 out of 13 games told the story of another Djokovic demolition job.
"It was not my best match, that's for sure," said Wawrinka. "It was also because he's playing really well. He's confident. He's not missing much.
"Today I think it was more about what I was doing. He put me in a position that I thought a little bit too much. I wasn't really clear what I was going to do, because he was doing everything well and returning well."
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