Roger Federer defeats Rafael Nadal in dream final

Roger Federer defeats Rafael Nadal in dream final

Roger Federer was in fine form on Sunday defeating Rafael Nadal 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 at the ATP World Tour Finals at London’s O2 arena.

It was only fitting that the top two-ranked tennis players met in the season-ending match. After Federer kicked-off 2010 by winning the Australian Open, it was Nadal who stole the spotlight the rest of the year by winning the French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open titles en route to completing a career Grand Slam. Nadal also took over the No. 1 ranking from Federer in June. However, on Sunday it was Federer who looked like the top player in the world with a brilliant service game that had Nadal frustrated for most of the match.

Federer lost only 13 points on his serve during the match and won an astonishing 92 percent of first service points.

"I was able to stay offensive. Rallies were never that long. That kind of maybe frustrated him," said Federer.

For Federer, it was the fifth time in his career that he has gone on to win the season-ending tournament, having also won in 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2007. He joins Pete Sampras and Ivan Lendl as the only five-time champions.

Federer started the match on fire losing only three service points in the entire first set and breaking Nadal once to take the early lead.

Federer continued his impressive serving in the second set losing only five service points. However, Federer was eventually broken by Nadal losing four service points in one game for Nadal’s only break of the match. The break was enough for Nadal to take the second set 6-3 to set up the third and final set.

"I don't want to say I gave it to him, but obviously Rafa is good enough off second serves he's going to win at least 50 percent off them usually, unless you're on a roll and he doesn't kind of figure out your second serve," Federer said. "But at that point, he was into the match. He knew the importance of it. He was able to find a way to break me in that game."

After Federer took a 2-1 advantage early, he was then able to break open the match for good after breaking Nadal in the crucial fourth game to open up a 3-1 lead. As he did in the second set, Federer only lost five service points in the third set and cruised to victory breaking Nadal again in the sixth game to open up a 5-1 lead before closing out the match on serve.

"I know I didn't spoil his vacation after this because he's had an amazing year," Federer said. "A year that any player dreams of."

For his part, Nadal looked to be tired in the third set after surviving a three-hour semifinal win over Andy Murray on Saturday. However, he was gracious in defeat and gave full credit to Federer.

"Everybody saw the match of yesterday, so everybody's free to think his own opinion," Nadal said. "I'm not going to say I lost the match because I was tired. What I'm going to say and what I feel is I lost the match because I played against a very good Roger Federer in one of his favourite surfaces. And when he's playing like this, it's very difficult to stop him, no?"