LONDON — World No. 1 Novak Djokovic will bid for a record fourth successive ATP World Tour Finals crown in London later this year after becoming the first man to qualify for the season-ender. Five-time Australian Open champion Djokovic reached the French Open semifinals by crushing Rafa Nadal Wednesday and has been virtually unbeatable this season and is currently on a 27-match unbeaten run. Serbian 28-year-old Djokovic is looking to become the eighth man in history to complete a career Grand Slam by winning the French Open this week. Djokovic won the elite ATP Tour Finals for the first time in Shanghai in 2008 and has a hat trick of titles in London, last year gaining a walkover against injured Roger Federer. “I had a great start to 2015 so I am really happy to have qualified so early. I hope I will have a great finish to the year too; I love playing at The O2,” Djokovic said. London's O2 Arena has hosted the event since 2009. Sense of anti-climax An almost deathly hush descended as Djokovic administered the last rights on Nadal's reign of dominance at the French Open. On the same dusty rectangle of Parisian clay on which the marauding Mallorcan struck fear into opponents for a decade, Djokovic made him suffer, handing out a straight-sets beating — 7-5, 6-3, 6-1 — that, by the end, was awkward to watch. Nine-time champion Nadal had fitfully found some form after a horror opening four games against the rampant Djokovic, whose previous six encounters with the Spaniard at Roland Garros had all ended in despair, twice in the final. For a while, something seemed to have stirred inside Nadal, the old timing sending the ball hurtling to within inches of the opposite baseline. For a while Djokovic doubted. Yet once a hesitant Nadal plopped a volley into the tramlines to hand Djokovic the opener on his sixth set point, there was an inevitability about the outcome of the 44th meeting between the two players. Commentating on the match for Eurosport, former world No. 1 John McEnroe said Nadal seemed to be playing with “weights on his ankles” in the early stages. The only thing holding Djokovic back was self-belief — not usually an ingredient missing from a player who has been virtually unbeatable this year. There was panic in his eyes when he surrendered that 4-0 lead, old scars re-opening. However with the opening set in his pocket, Djokovic turned up the heat to leave Nadal in uncharted territory, having never lost the opening two sets at Roland Garros since his debut in 2005. Nadal's seemingly bottomless tank of fighting spirit has fuelled a career that has brought him 14 Grand Slam titles, but even that precious commodity ebbed away Wednesday. His 39-match winning streak at Roland Garros ended in feeble fashion, with a double-fault not one of the mind-boggling rallies the two gladiators have produced down the years. — Agencies
