ATP World Tour Finals Day 3: Roger Federer faces Kei Nishikori; Andy Murray takes on Milos Raonic
After a thrilling Day one, The spectators arrived at the O2 arena, expecting an equally cracking second day. However, they were left slightly disappointed as both the games on Monday were completely one-sided with Stanislas Wawrinka thrashing Tomas Berdych 6-1, 6-1 and Novak Djokovic beating Marin Cilic with the same margin.
Group B action resumes on Tuesday with Roger Federer facing off against Kei Nishikori in the first game of the evening and Andy Murray taking on Milos Raonic in the second game. Nishikori heads into his game with Federer, high on confidence having defeated hometown boy Andy Murray on the first day. However, he is up against a Federer, who is chasing his seventh ATP tour finals win and looking to finish the year as the World No. 1.
Interestingly, the head-to-head between the two in 4 matches is 2-2, with Federer winning the last encounter in Halle, Germany.
The Swiss ace is not focusing all of his attention on the No. 1 ranking.
"I didn't put any target I think on the rankings. I was putting more rather a target on trying to win an amount of titles, because last year I had only won one. That was quite disappointing actually, so I was trying to get maybe three to five at least. That was the goal." The 33-year-old said.
Nishikori, on the other hand, seemed confident of putting up another good show against the 17-time Grand Slam champion.
"I try not to think, you know, I can't beat these guys, because I've been beating those top?10 guys already. You know, this is even first time for me to play to a Final”, Nishikori said.
In the second match of the evening, Andy Murray will be looking to get back to winning ways against 2014 Paris Masters runner-up Milos Raonic.
Murray, who suffered a loss at the hands of Kei Nishikori on Day One, said that its an uphill task to qualify after losing the first match. In further bad news for Murray fans, Raonic leads the head-to-head 3-1.
"Well, I don't necessarily go into every match against all the top players expecting to win. You want to win the match. That's obviously the goal all the time. It's harder to qualify when you lose your first match. That's pretty obvious." Murray said.
Raonic spoke about how the player who adjusts quicker could come on top in the fixture.
"Things are going to be quite different than the first match. We both [me and Murray], after today, have more so of an idea what we need to do different for the next round. It's going to be about who necessarily adjusts better, who can play better come Tuesday night." he said.