November 22,2009-Top seed Roger Federer, beat Fernando Verdasco 4-6, 7-5, 6-1 in front of a sellout crowd of 17,500 at the O2 arena. Fourth-ranked Andy Murray earlier beat Juan Martin Del Potro 6-3, 3-6, 6-2. Both of the group A matches featured valiant attempts by Verdasco and Del Potro, but fell short.
Federer lost the opening game at love after a double fault on the first point. The Swiss champ concentrated on the Verdasco backhand. The lefty from Spain was not rattled and gained confidence as the set wore on, clinching it 6-4 with a strong backhand pass that shook Federer’s racquet.
The second set did not show Federer at his best but showed his resilience as he picked up his serving to keep ahead. With the set getting to the do or die stage, Federer raised his game and pounded Verdasco and it started to take its toll. Verdasco’s serve crumbled in the 12th game and Federer jumped on the chance with strong returns forcing errors from the Spaniard. The world number one had evened the set.
In the third set it was Federer’s forehands that started to hurt Verdasco as his errors increased. As Federer applied even more pressure, he raced through the set to a 5-0 lead before closing out a tough victory after one hour and 59 minutes.
In his match,Murray won the first five games before Del Potro got his bearings and started to unleash some huge forehand winners. Del Potro fought back to 3-5 and, although Murray finally won the set on his seventh set point, the momentum had shifted.
In the second set, Del Potro broke serve twice and continued to batter Murray with some bruising forehands that Murray could barely poke back defensively. Del Potro won the second set with an unrelenting crosscourt attack.
However, the barrage of Del Potro quickly lost its punch and Murray won the third set rather easily after breaking in the second game.
"He's got a big serve, long reach and goes for huge shots. You just have to try and get through it. Tactically I've always been fairly good so I found a way through today," Murray said.
On Monday, Rafael Nadal starts the group B action when he meets Sweden’s Robin Soderlin and Novak Djokovic goes against Nikolay Davydenko.
Today’s crowd of 17,467, which was 2,500 more than the capacity on Centre Court at Wimbledon, is the biggest ever to watch a tennis match in Britain.
