Federer has a good group at the ATP Finals

The groups of the ATP Finals are set and Roger Federer had a good one.

What happened?

After Juan Martin Del Potro, also Rafael Nadal decided to withdraw because of his abdominal injury that also gave him the opportunity to have an operation to his ankle. Therefore, Nishikori and  Isner got a last minute’s ticket to London.

With Nadal out, the top seeds were Federer and Djokovic and after the draw ceremony we have these groups

Group Guga Kuerten
[1] Novak Djokovic (SRB)
[3] Alexander Zverev (GER)
[5] Marin Cilic (CRO)
[8] John Isner (USA)

Group Lleyton Hewitt
[2] Roger Federer (SUI)
[4] Kevin Anderson (RSA)
[6] Dominic Thiem (AUT)
[7] Kei Nishikori (JPN)

Why Federer had a good group?

Roger was a bit “lucky” because of he has the “solution” with Nishikori (he leads him 4-0 on indoor courts) and even if he has a losing record against Dominic Thiem (1-2), even if he has recently won St. Petersburg and he reached the semis in Paris, the Austrian is not “that strong” on hard courts.

Conversely, in the Guga Kuerten group, Djokovic will have to face players that are extremely dangerous on indoor fast courts such as Marin Cilic and John Isner. Zverev is also not an easy one.

Federer has won the ATP Finals on 6 occasions and he was the runner-up on 4 occasions. can he achieve more this year?

Nadal will undergo surgery to withdraw from the ATP Finals