Roger Federer eases past Tomas Berdych at ATP World Tour Finals

ByBen Snowball

Updated 15/11/2015 at 23:35 GMT

Roger Federer shrugged off a shaky start to roar past Tomas Berdych 6-4 6-2 in his opening match at the ATP World Tour Finals.

The Swiss maestro quickly found himself a break down in the opening set, but responded in equally swift fashion to restore parity at 2-2.

That early foray into the Federer serve was the only sighting Berdych had as the world number three resisted his rival a single break point for the remainder of the encounter.

From then on, it was all Federer. He broke again to clinch the first set before charging through the second to fire a warning to tournament favourite Novak Djokovic.

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"It was one of the worst starts I've had in years," Federer told reporters. "No first serves, two double-faults, nothing coming from the baseline. So it was rough.

"But thankfully I was able to pick it up."

Switzerland's Roger Federer reacts after being present with two awards, the Fans' Favourite award, and the Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship award

Image credit: AFP

Federer was in ruthless form at the London finals last year, only for him to withdraw just hours before a showdown with Djokovic citing a back injury.

On his match-up with the Serb in a couple of days' time, Federer said: "Two days is not the match that I care the most about, to be quite honest.

"It's an important match, very important. But it's not the match. It's going to be interesting to see how I play that one. I'm curious to find out myself."

The 34-year-old, along with Berdych, is joined by Djokovic and Kei Nishikori in Group Stan Smith.

Djokovic earlier began his quest for another title in 2015 with a 6-1 6-1 demolition of Nishikori.

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