Federer first through to semis in ATP finals

Roger Federer of Switzerland wipes his face while playing against Robin Soderling of Sweden during their singles quarter-final match during the ATP World Tour Tennis tournament in London, on November 25, 2010. Roger Federer sealed his place in the semi-finals of the ATP World Tour Finals with a 7-6 (7/5), 6-3 victory over Swedish fourth seed Robin Soderling. AFP PHOTO/GLYN KIRK Source: AFP

Federer extended his head-to-head margin to 15-1 against Soderling, leaving this season's Roland Garros aberration as the only blotch on an otherwise perfect record.

The world No. 2 surged into tomorrow's semi-finals 7-6 (7-5), 6-3 in only 78 minutes with another quality performance.

The result meant Australian Open champion Federer is the first player at the season-ending championship to qualify for the semi-finals.

And, with January's Australian Open looming, the right-hander was elated to have regained such impressive form after disappointing campaigns at the French Open and Wimbledon.

"Starting the season great in Australia, finishing the season great in London would be, you know, the circle is sort of closed," he said.

"Then again, I'm still two matches away, two really tough matches.

"I'm most likely going to play against top five guys. Depends who I play, I don't even know yet.

"It's going to be a tough weekend ahead of me. That's my focus right now.

"So far it's been good, you know. I won against top 10 players in straight sets.

"That's going to make me feel obviously awfully good for the weekend. But I hope I can keep it up. Tournament's not over yet. This is really when it starts for me."

Federer swept to a 4-2 lead in the first set, only to weather a typically frenetic Soderling revival.

The Swede led 5-4 before Federer reasserted his authority - but the Swiss had to wait to the tiebreak to finally shake off the Swede, unleashing a magnificent backhand winner Soderling mistakenly thought was a mishit

Once ahead, Federer played with increased freedom in a tight contest.

Federer broke serve for a 5-3 buffer before sealing victory in style, serving brilliantly and drawing more errors from desperate Soderling.

Federer's superb serve was again the difference. The former world champion conceded only 10 points against serve for the match.

Federer has not lost a serve so far this week, savaging David Ferrer, Andy Murray and Soderling as he closes in on a fifth victory at this event.

Murray reached the semis with a 6-2, 6-2 thumping of Ferrer after recovering from a shaky start to beat the latter, handing the Spaniard his third straight loss in the group phase.

He only had to win a set - following Federer's win - to clinch second place in the group. He took care of that in 31 minutes, recovering from going down 2-0 in the first set by playing nearly perfect tennis in winning the next seven games to take control of the match.

Federer and Murray will know their semi-final opponents will be decided on Friday, when the last round-robin matches in Group A are played.

Results for the $5.07million season-ending finals (seedings in parentheses):

Singles Group B

Roger Federer (2), Switzerland, def. Robin Soderling (4), Sweden, 7-6 (5), 6-3.

Andy Murray (5), Britain, def. David Ferrer (7), Spain, 6-2,  6-2.

Doubles Group A

Bob and Mike Bryan (1), United States, def. Lukas Dlouhy, Czech Republic, and Leander Paes (4), India, 6-3, 6-4.

Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski (6), Poland, def. Jurgen Melzer, Austria, and Philipp Petzschner (7), Germany, 6-3,  7-6 (7).