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After a magnificent season on the ATP World Tour where a number of storylines took limelight over the course of the year, it was finally time to kick off the ATP finals to end the season with yet another spectacle.
First up, it was Kevin Anderson who took on Dominic Thiem in the first round-robin match of the tournament, and it was the South African who came out on top with an extremely impressive 6-3 7-6(10) win over the Austrian to kick off his debut at the season-ending finale in the best possible manner.
It is the first time that Anderson has qualified for the big finale and he understandably looked a bit nervous in the very first game, putting in a double fault and making a couple of unforced errors.
But he went on to hold with some of those trustworthy big serves.
With that, he settled down nicely and pretty soon turned on the aggression by attacking the net quite a lot. This made Thiem uncomfortable, resulting in a break of serve as the South African went up 4-1 in quick time.
Anderson didn’t take his foot off the pedal, making the Austrian look rushed off the ground for the better part of the set and took the opener, 6-3, in impressive fashion.
In the second set, Anderson kept on his merry way while Thiem stepped up his level a bit as both players looked comfortable on serve in the early stages.
The Austrian didn’t lose a single point on the way to his first four service holds while making Anderson work quite a bit on his delivery by stepping up on the court while returning.
But Thiem failed to capitalize on the few chances he had on Anderson’s deal by making a couple of costly unforced errors as the set headed towards a tiebreak.
In the breaker, it was Thiem who got off to the better start as he got himself an early mini-break, but Anderson responded almost immediately as both players got to the first changeover with it all squared up at 3-3.
Then, at 4-4, it was Anderson who went up a mini-break with some powerful strokes off the ground. But this time, it was Thiem’s time to respond as he brought it back on serve immediately with the help of an aggressive backhand return.
Post that, both players looked almost untouchable on serve as the score once again got even at 9-9.
Then, at 10-10, Anderson came up with a blockbuster of a forehand down the line, on the run, to get the pivotal mini break and served out the match win an ace to get off to the best possible start in his maiden outing in the ATP Finals.
In the evening session, it was Roger Federer who took on Kei Nishikori for the third time in less than a month and this time the Japanese reversed the fortunes and defeated an out of sorts Swiss, 7-6(4), 6-3 in an error-filled encounter.
Both players started the match looking pretty comfortable on serve in the early exchanges.
None of the two really looked in the groove as the set was then filled with mistimed shots and shanks, especially on the return, from both players.
The two combined for a total of 26 unforced errors as the set went to a tiebreak to separate them.
In the breaker, it was the Japanese who drew first blood and got the mini-break with help from a bad forehand shank from Federer.
He then got another one with a great forehand return and then rode the momentum onto his serve and took a sizeable 6-1 lead.
Federer, though, didn’t back down as he took the next three points to put some pressure on the Japanese.
But it proved to be too little, too late as Nishikori held on and edged passed the Swiss to take an error-filled opening set.
Nishikori started the second set in horrible fashion, making 3 unforced errors and a double fault to gift Federer a break.
But Federer couldn’t capitalize as he played an equally poor game and handed the advantage right back.
The level of tennis didn’t go up at all and at 2-3, Federer played another error-filled game to go down 30-40 and Nishikori thumped a forehand to take a crucial break advantage.
After that, Nishikori kept a relatively solid base level of play and closed out the match comfortably to win just his third match and his first since 2014 against the Swiss star, who simply looked out of sorts throughout and lost for the first time in the round-robin stage in straight sets at the ATP finals.
