ATP World Tour Finals Day 6

He holds a 22-21 lead in their career head-to-head, including a 7-5, 6-2 win earlier this week in round robin play.

On Saturday Federer hit his stride after a shaky start, rebounding from a break deficit in the first set to win five of the final six games to gain the edge.

This will be the 28-year-old Serbian’s 15th consecutive final, a truly astounding record given the considerable depth of quality of the opposition. “I’ll give it all I have, it’s the last match of the season”.

Leading 5-3, all Djokovic had left to do was break Nadal to close out the match – and although Nadal made a last-ditch attempt to stave off what was by now the inevitable, he was unable to.

Novak Djokovic is back in the final of the season-ending ATP finals. This year he is serving great.

“I don’t feel unbeatable, but it does definitely feel great when I’m playing the way I played today, when I feel like I’m dictating the pace, the match itself, most of the rallies, I feel like I’m on top of my opponent”, Djokovic told reporters.

If the Serb lifts the trophy for a fifth time, he will become the first player to win the Tour Finals four years in a row.

The Serb said clashes between the pair were always nervy affairs as he prepared to face his rival for a second time at London’s O2 Arena this week – Federer having got the better of the world No 1 in the group stage.

“I’m just interested to see how Novak adapts to that fast, furious up tempo tennis that Roger took to him earlier in the week and it paid dividends”.

Federer is a six-times victor who has beaten Djokovic three times this year and stands in the way of his grab at a fourth end-of-year title on the spin.

He won two of their three matches this year, including their last encounter in the US Open semi-finals, where Federer went on to lose to Djokovic.

Djokovic, who would have claimed a rare calendar-year grand slam this year but for a French Open final defeat by Stanislas Wawrinka, suffered a first indoor defeat in three-and-a-half years against Roger Federer this week.

Nadal, however, will probably leave London in good spirits.

With the brilliant game, Djokovic managed to level his head-to-head score with Nadal at 23-23. Arms raised aloft like a gladiator who finally put paid to the lion showed you that he wanted to compete, but a rash of errors in both sets really let him down.

Nadal, 29, has misplaced eight of the final 9 matches since October 2013. I thought I did a nice job, didn’t mess up too many volleys [glorious Federer understatement: he won 24 of 32 visits to the net]. “When somebody’s doing like this, just the only thing I can do is congratulate him and just wish not the best of luck for the next year!”

Wawrinka saw off a match point to hold for 5-3, but Federer was cruising by this point and ended the contest with a straightforward service game. Hopefully I’ll be able to play better than I’ve done a few days ago.

Nadal, though, remains confident of a better 2016 after the positive way he has finished a hard season.