Court of Opinion

Season-ending tournaments are great in theory -- all the top players guaranteed to compete against one another, making one last claim at who is the best -- yet rarely live up to the hype. The 1981 Toyota Series Championships really did feel like it was deciding the number one ranking, with Chris Evert, Tracy Austin and Martina Navratilova each winning a Grand Slam event and having similar years overall. But Rafael Nadal already has 2013 in the bag, regardless of the outcome, so it's hard to muster up much enthusiasm for London. Still, Reuters reports that Novak Djokovic joined Nadal as a guaranteed semifinalist at the ATP World Tour Finals with a 6-3 3-6 6-3 victory over Juan Martin del Potro on Thursday. Del Potro now faces a shoot-out with Roger Federer on Saturday to see which of them will join defending champion Djokovic in the last four of the year-ender. Earlier Federer beat Richard Gasquet in straight sets to get off the mark after losing his opening match to Djokovic. Nadal is already assured of a semifinal berth having won both his Group A matches. While the number one ranking isn't on the line, it would put quite an exclamation point on Nadal's year if he could win it -- especially given (as my brother Bill points out) the shocking statistic that Nadal has only won two career indoor tournaments, and one of them was on clay!