Seeing red: Roger Federer getting off to a good start at the end-of-year tournament in London
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Roger Federer has won his opening tennis match at the ATP World Tour Finals, beating David Ferrer 6-1, 6-4 on the opening day of the season-ending event.
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The second-ranked Federer, a four-time champion at the tournament for the top eight players in the world, stretched his record to 11-0 against the seventh-ranked Spaniard, dominating the first set and spraying shots all around the court at the O2 Arena in London.
“I’m really happy the way I was able to get out of the first match here,” said Federer. “Starting off with a feisty top ten player is never easy.”
Despite the score, Federer didn’t dominate. The 16-time grand slam champion was forced to deuce five times and had to save five break points in the second set.
“Looking at the score line, it doesn’t reflect how tough it was,” Federer said. “There were many close games, especially in the second set.”
In the crowd, the cheers were mostly for the Swiss, unsurprising considering his six Wimbledon titles at the All England Club.
“He’s the number two of the world and the best player in history,” Ferrer said. “Always when one plays Federer, the people support more him than the other players.”
Federer and Britain’s Andy Murray are in Group B at the round-robin tournament and will face each other on Tuesday. On Sunday Murray defeated Robin Söderling 6-2, 6-4. Group A will take the court on Monday with top-ranked Rafael Nadal facing Andy Roddick and Novak Djokovic playing Tomas Berdych.
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If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.