Roger Federer has a tough draw in London Year end masters tour final

LONDON: Roger Federer will face US Open champion Juan Martin del Potro, Andy Murray and Spain's Fernando Verdasco in the tougher of the two round
robin groups for the ATP World Tour Finals.

Group B in the end-of-season showpiece event features former wold number one Rafael Nadal, recent Paris Masters champion Novak Djokovic, Nikolay Davydenko and late-entrant Robin Soderling.

Soderling had failed to qualify for the eight-man event but was brought in following the withdrawal of Wimbledon finalist Andy Roddick, who has not played since injuring his left knee in Shanghai last month.

Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is now on standby in case of any other withdrawals.

The top two players in each of the round robin groups advance to the semi-finals of the tournament, which starts Sunday at London's O2 Arena. The final is on November 29.

Nadal Has Not Beaten a Top 10 player over 6 months

For over half a year! after Madrid 2009 Nadal hasnt beaten a Top 10 player.

I was surprised at the way he struggled yesterday and had Almagro had a bit more composure, he would also have lost comprehensively again. So I checked the stats and the last time Nadal won a top 10 player was against Djoko in Madrid (tough match that was too).

London in 10 days time will certainly give us a better idea to where he stands amongst the top 8

Cuevas-Granollers Edge London Finals Contenders For Moscow Title

Third seed Pablo Cuevas and Marcel Granollers won their first ATP World Tour team title at the Kremlin Cup in Moscow on Sunday.

Cuevas and Granollers converted one of eight break point opportunities, but held their nerve in the Match tie-break to defeat top seeds Frantisek Cermak of the Czech Republic and Slovak Michal Mertinak 4-6, 7-5, 10-8 in 85 minutes.

“I am very happy, this is a great tournament and it’s nice to end on such a good note,” said Cuevas, who was appearing in his fourth doubles final (3-1) and his first on a hard-court. “Marcel and I have played together only a few times and we’ve always done well, but this is our first title together. We had a great time this week.”

It is Cuevas and Granollers’ fourth ATP World Tour tournament as a team (11-3 match record overall). They made a successful debut at in April 2008, by reaching the US Men's Clay Court Championship final in Houston.

Granollers improved to 3-1 in doubles finals and he was contesting his first non-clay-court final. This year, he won titles at the Brasil Open in Costa do Sauipe (w/Robredo) and the Copa Telmex in Buenos Aires (w/A. Martin).

Cermak and Mertinak, who won 70 per cent of service points and hit four aces, dropped to 4-2 in ATP World Tour doubles finals this year.

They captured clay-court titles at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel in Acapulco, the MercedesCup in Stuttgart, the ATP Studena Croatia Open in Umag and the BCR Open Romania in Bucharest. The duo also reached the Movistar Open in Vina del Mar.

Cermak was attempting to earn his 21st career ATP World Tour title (20-14 overall) and Mertinak his 11th ATP World Tour title (10-3).

The duo is No. 9 in the ATP Doubles Team Ranking and they are trying to earn a spot in the year-ending Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London next month.