On Thursday night, Roger Federer beat 38-year-old Swiss Novak Djokovic for the first time in four years. In the first rematch between Federer and Novak Djokovic since that epic five-set final, the Swiss star dominated from the start to win 6-4, 6-3 on Thursday and reach the semifinals of the ATP Finals.
According to CNN, Federer told reporters "I'm just happy at the level I could play today and obviously it's always special beating Novak, even more so (after) what happened but I didn't feel like I had to get rid of the ghosts or anything like that. I feel like I moved on pretty quickly after that."
"It was not much that I did right this match," Djokovic, who still owns a winning 26-23 record against Federer, told reporters. "Realistically he was the better player in all aspects and absolutely deserved to win. "He served great, moved well, returned my serve very well. From his end, I think he did everything right. From my end, I was just playing too neutral. I couldn't read his serve well. Just a pretty bad match from my side."
The result means Djokovic was eliminated with a 1-2 record in the group stage, and ensures that Rafael Nadal will keep hold of the year-end No. 1 ranking. Djokovic had a chance to overtake Nadal and equal Pete Sampras' record of finishing the year as No. 1 for a sixth time by winning the tournament. Federer will meet top seed Rafael Nadal or Stefanos Tsitsipas in the last four.
