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Federer, Bryan Brothers Roll with ATP Basel Titles
Posted on October 28, 2007
World No. 1 Roger Federer captured his seventh title of the year and clinched the No. 1 ranking for 2007 on Sunday with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Jarkko Nieminen in the final of his hometown event at the Davidoff Swiss Indoors in Basel.
The win took just over an hour as the Swiss improved to 8-0 career versus Nieminen.
"Obviously for me it is the only Swiss tournament I play each year," Federer said. "To get the title here is great for the Swiss people and for me. A lot of emotions go through my body when I have the ceremony, as I used to be a ball boy standing in the exact same ceremony. I am very happy with my performance."
Federer is now the fifth man since the inception of the ATP Rankings in 1973 to finish in the year-end No. 1 spot four times after Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Ivan Lendl and Pete Sampras. He also joined Connors, McEnroe and Sampras as players to do it in four or more consecutive years. Sampras holds the record of six consecutive years at No. 1.
Nieminen drops to 1-6 in career finals. During the week the Finn saved one match point against Robby Ginepri in the first round, and two match points against No. 6 seed Guillermo Canas in the second round.
"I had a great feeling going into the match on his home court. I tried too much at the beginning and lost an early break," Nieminen said. "I made many unforced errors and had a tough opponent on the other side."
In the doubles final, top seeds Bob and Mike Bryan became the first team to win 10 or more titles in one season, since Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde won 12 titles in 1996, beating the unseeded tandem of James Blake and Mark Knowles 6-1, 6-1.
The Bryan brothers are now at No. 5 among all-time doubles title leaders with 43 titles, trailing Woodbridge/Woodforde (61), Peter Fleming/John McEnroe and Bob Hewitt/Frew McMillan (57), and Sergio Casal/Emilio Sanchez (44).
"I have seen them do it to a lot of guys in Davis Cup from the sidelines and know how little fun it is to face them," Blake said after the shellacking. "That's the reason why they are the best doubles team in the world right now. I told Mark I had not won a lot of doubles matches this year, so I was glad to have him get me through a couple of wins."
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