ATP World Tour Finals: scenario centre redux
Originally published on: 25/11/10 19:30
Well, that was simple enough. After entering yesterday with 20 possible outcomes from the first of the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals groups, victories for Roger Federer and Andy Murray, the Bryan brothers and Fyrstenberg and Matkowski kept things straightforward enough and meant we could leave the abacus in the bag. Could we go two for two today?
Well, for starters there are just nine possible outcomes from today’s matches, though the singles Group A could get pretty tasty. Federer awaits the runner-up of Group A in the semi-finals, which before a ball has been hit on Friday could be any one of the four men in action. The group winner – which rules out Andy Roddick – will face Murray on Saturday.
In the doubles, Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic booked their semi-final showdown with world No.1 pair the Bryan brothers by winning Group B on Wednesday, and face the already-eliminated Lukas Kubot and Oliver Marach. Do they take it easy or try to maintain their momentum in Friday’s opening match?
One thing’s for sure – the winner-takes-all showdown between Moodie & Norman and Mirnyi and Bhupathi for the right to play Polish dark horses and Group A winners Marcin Matkowski and Marius Fyrstenberg should be a cracker.
But the time has come to give you all a headache. Brace yourselves – here come the singles scenarios…
Singles Group A standings:
| win-loss | sets won-lost | games won-lost | |
| Rafael Nadal | 2-0 | 4-1 | 29-23 |
| Novak Djokovic | 1-1 | 2-2 | 19-19 |
| Tomas Berdych | 1-1 | 2-2 | 19-20 |
| Andy Roddick | 0-2 | 1-4 | 24-29 |
Rafael Nadal vs Tomas Berdych
Novak Djokovic vs Andy Roddick
A couple of straightforward whatever-the-score scenarios presented themselves in Group B yesterday, but no such luck with Group A, so we’ll head straight to
The tricky bit…
Scenario 1: Berdych beats Nadal in two sets, Djokovic beats Roddick in two sets
Djokovic tops the group, Berdych reaches semi-finals
Scenario 2: Berdych beats Nadal in two sets, Djokovic beats Roddick in three sets
Berdych tops the group, Nadal reaches semi-finals
Scenario 3: Berdych beats Nadal in three sets, Djokovic beats Roddick in two sets
Djokovic tops the group, Nadal reaches semi-finals
Scenario 4: Berdych beats Nadal in three sets, Djokovic beats Roddick in three sets
Nadal tops the group, Djokovic reaches semi-finals
Scenario 5: Roddick beats Djokovic in two sets, Nadal beats Berdych in two sets
Nadal tops the group, Roddick reaches semi-finals
Scenario 6: Roddick beats Djokovic in two sets, Nadal beats Berdych in three sets
Nadal tops the group, Berdych reaches semi-finals
Scenario 7: Roddick beats Djokovic in three sets, Nadal beats Berdych in two sets
Nadal tops the group, Djokovic reaches semi-finals
Scenario 8: Roddick beats Djokovic in three sets, Nadal beats Berdych in three sets
Nadal tops the group, Djokovic reaches semi-finals
Still, at least there’s none of yesterday’s games-won-and-lost astrophysics to worry about…
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