LONDON // Roger Federer knocked Japan’s Kei Nishikori out of the ATP World Tour Finals and guaranteed top spot in his group with a 7-5, 4-6, 6-4 victory on Thursday.
Federer, 34, had clinched a record 13th Tour Finals semi-final place after ending Novak Djokovic’s three-month, 23-match winning run on Tuesday.
But he still needed to beat Nishikori to be certain of advancing as group winner, and he finished the job in two hours and 10 minutes of gruelling action to secure his third successive victory at London’s O2 Arena.
Federer, who has won the Tour Finals a record six times, will face either Andy Murray or Stan Wawrinka in the last four tomorrow. The second semi-finalist from Federer’s group was also to be decided late last night when world No 1 Djokovic played Tomas Berdych.
Nishikori’s last meeting with Federer had also been at the Tour Finals a year ago and ended in a heavy defeat for the Japanese. This time he put up much more of a fight but was once again denied a third career win over the Swiss.
Nishikori, 25, has struggled with injuries during a disappointing 2015 and could have allowed his season to fizzle out when a wayward backhand gifted Federer a break in the fourth game of the first set.
But Nishikori broke back in the next game and again in the seventh, converting with a ferocious cross-court winner. Yet as suddenly as Nishikori had seized the advantage, he found it vanished just as quickly as Federer took advantage of a sloppy service game to break again.
Nishikori finally wilted in the 12th game with a pair of unforced errors surrendering the first set.
It looked all over for Nishikori when he trailed 4-1 in the second set, but to his credit he came back fighting and started to go for winners with almost every shot, and he broke back in the seventh game.
He broke again for a 5-4 lead before closing out a set that looked beyond him moments earlier.
Federer regained the initiative when he broke for a 3-1 lead in the final set, yet the indefatigable Nishikori clawed his way out of trouble with a break in the seventh game.
However, Federer would not be denied and he unloaded a booming smash to finally see off Nishikori on his first match point.
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