Roger Federer Seeks Fourth Straight Year-End No. 1 Ranking Today in Basel

Top seed and defending champion Roger Federer is just one match away from the season-ending No. 1 ranking for the fourth consecutive year while an unseeded Jarkko Nieminen tries to put the finishing touches on an unlikely run, as the title match of the Davidoff Swiss Indoors Basel take the court Sunday. In the doubles final, Bob and Mike Bryan face James Blake and Mark Knowles.

Federer improved to 69-14 lifetime in semifinals with a straight-sets victory against Ivo Karlovic on Saturday. He is 51-17 in his previous 68 ATP singles finals, including a 6-4 mark this year (his six titles include the Australian Open, Wimbledon and US Open, as well as two AMS shields; his four runner-up finishes came at Roland Garros and three AMS events, including last week in Madrid).

With his 7-6(6), 7-6(5) win over Karlovic on Saturday, Federer extended his semifinal win streak to 33 in a row; he has now won 51 of his last 53 as well, his only two semifinal losses since the end of 2003 coming in 2005 at the Australian Open (falling to Safin) and Roland Garros (falling to Nadal).

Federer is playing Basel for the eighth time, his best results being one title run last year, runner-up finishes in 2000 (to Enqvist) and 2001 (to Henman), one semifinal (2002) and a quarterfinal (1999).

After dropping a set to Berrer in his first match of the week (but going on to win, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3), the Swiss has cruised in straight sets, beating del Potro, Kiefer and Karlovic to reach today’s final.

With his quarterfinal victory over Kiefer, Federer passed Moya for most ATP singles match wins for an active player (with 544; Moya has 543); his semifinal win over Karlovic pushed him to 545.

Should he go on to win the title on Sunday, Federer would clinch the year-end World No. 1 singles ranking for a fourth consecutive year as well. He would become the fifth man since the inception of the rankings in 1973 to be year-end No. 1 four times (after Connors, McEnroe, Lendl and Sampras) and the fourth to do it four or more years consecutively (after Connors, McEnroe and Sampras).

Nieminen improved to 7-14 lifetime in semifinals with a straight-sets victory over Marcos Baghdatis on Saturday. He is 1-5 in his first six career ATP singles finals, winning 2006 Auckland and finishing runner-up at 2001 Stockholm, 2002 Estoril, 2002 Mallorca, 2003 Munich and 2006 Stockholm. This will be his first final of the year, however, having fallen at the semifinal stage twice before this week.

Nieminen has played some clutch tennis so far this week, rallying back from 5-1 down in the third set to beat Robby Ginepri in the first round, 3-6, 6-4, 7-5 (saving match point down 5-2) and beating No. 6 seed Guillermo Canas 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 in the second round (saving two match points down 5-4). In the quarterfinals, he ousted No. 2 seed (and 2005 Basel champion) Gonzalez, 6-3, 7-5. The Finn had only won a set against the Chilean in four meetings prior to their quarterfinal match this week.

Nieminen is 0-5 lifetime against No. 1s, falling to Hewitt twice when he was No. 1 (in 2002) and to Federer three times since he became No. 1 (2004 Dubai, 2005 Australian Open, 2005 Bangkok).

The Bryans are seeking their 10th title of the year, after wins at the Australian Open, Las Vegas, AMS Miami, Houston, AMS Monte-Carlo, AMS Hamburg, Los Angeles, Washington and just last week at AMS Madrid. They are at No. 5 among all-time doubles title leaders with 42 trophies, after Woodbridge/Woodforde (61), Fleming/McEnroe and Hewitt/McMillan (57) and Casal/Sanchez (44).

Blake and Knowles, playing together for the first time this week and unseeded, have taken out a pair of seeds en route to the final, namely No. 3 seeds Simon Aspelin and Julian Knowle in the first round and No. 2 seeds Paul Hanley and Kevin Ullyett in the semifinals (which thrilled the crowds on Saturday, as they needed 13 match points to close out a Match Tie-break win, 7-5, 6-7(5), 12-10). Blake is seeking is sixth individual career ATP doubles title (he is 5-1 lifetime in ATP doubles finals) while Knowles is seeking his 47th individual career ATP doubles title (46-33 lifetime in finals). (ATP Digital Services)