With only ten minutes of his good version, Roger Federer dispatched Matteo Berrettini (7-6 (2) and 6-3) in the Masters Cup. Ten minutes, more or less what it took to overwhelm the Italian in the tiebreaker of the first set and the start of the second. No more, but enough to stay alive in the final tournament of the circuit. 'His' tournament: nobody has won it more times (6), nobody has played finals (10) and nobody has won more victories. With this one there are 58.

The defeat at the premiere against Dominic Thiem forced Federer to win to keep his chances of getting into the semifinals. "I can no longer afford to lose," the Swiss assumed. Although, incidentally, he has never done so: in his 17 participations (also a tournament record), he has never lost the second round-robin duel. And against Berrettini there was no exception: 7-6 (2) and 6-3 in 78 minutes.

Berrettini, number eight in the world, improved with respect to the only precedent between the two, the eighth finals of Wimbledon this year. Only in the first set he won more games (6) than in the three sleeves he endured on the grass of the All England Club (5). Not bad for a debutante, but in the few tense moments the difference in flight hours was noticed.

Roger's bluntness

At the end of the first set, the right began to fail as he had not done so far. He shook the serve, his other cane. And while he doubted, Federer shone, that from an acceleration he took the tiebreaker of the first sleeve and the start of the second with a blank 'break'. Faced with that tenderness of Berrettini, the forcefulness of the Swiss to scare away the two breaking balls that the Italian had in the eighth game of the second set.

The victory does not change the situation of Federer in the Masters Cup, which must win on Thursday to Novak Djokovic to seal his pass to the semifinals and feed another one of so many records that he treasures in this tournament: of the 16 times he has competed, only in 2008 failed to pass the first phase.

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