No Djoke: Novak Djokovic Routs Andy Roddick To Complete ATP's Final Four

Lauren LynchNov 26, 2010

The weekend scalpers should have no problem moving merchandise this weekend for the Final Four of the Barclay World Tour Finals in London.

No. 3 Novak Djokovic completed the stellar quartet Friday afternoon by throttling American Andy Roddick 6-2, 6-3 to snap up the final qualifying spot.

Djokovic finished 2-1 in round-robin play and will square off against Group B No.1 seed Roger Federer on Saturday. The other semifinal will pit world No. 1 Rafael Nadal, the 3-0 Group A champion, against local favorite Andy Murray, who went 2-1 to take the second seed in Group B.

On Friday, Djokovic broke Roddick three times, out-aced the American 6-4 and looked crisper throughout. Some thought Djokovic might struggle in the tournament given his fixation on the upcoming Davis Cup Finals, but he showed little sign of that in whipping Roddick and Tomas Berdych before him.

Now the top-ranked Serb will face Federer for the fifth time in three months, a remarkable amount of times in the modern game. Federer defeated Djokovic in the finals at Basel and the semifinals at Shanghai in their last two meetings.

Djokovic's last triumph over Federer was his much-ballyhooed five-set win in the US Open semifinals in September. Overall, this will be the 19th meeting between the pair, with Federer owning a 12-6 advantage.

Djokovic must do better or as well as Murray in the final four, lest he see the No. 3 position in the world fall by the wayside. Each man accumulated 400 points at last year's Finals and both have defended all 400 points with two wins apiece in Group play. Murray trails Djokovic by 275 points overall.

If Murray advances further than Djokovic, he will leapfrog both Robin Soderling and Djokovic and ascend to No. 3 in the world for the first time since March 22 of this year. Of course to do so, Murray must take down Nadal, who he owns a 2-1 record this year against, albeit going just 4-8 overall. Playing indoors generally makes Nadal more pedestrian, but he has seemed anything but this week after a slow start against Roddick.

The elephant in the room beyond the rankings is the potential for another matchup between Nadal and Federer. If they do meet, it will be the eighth straight time they have done so in a final, and the 17th time overall out of 21 meetings.