Federer caps off another historic season

Over the next week Roger Federer will play three exhibition matches against Pete Sampras in Asia.
After the way he won his fourth Tennis Masters Cup title in the last five years, it will be interesting to see how the reigning world No.1 deals with the former dominant force in men's tennis.
Sampras, like Ivan Lendl before him, won five season-ending championships in his prime and on the evidence of the past week's play in Shanghai there is little to suggest that Federer won't match that number in 12 months time.
He probably will have broken Sampras's all-time record of 14 grand slam singles titles along the way.
Although Fernando Gonzalez did what nobody else had managed before him by beating Federer in a round-robin match at the event at the start of the week, the Swiss maestro made certain of beating Nikolay Davydenko two days later.

He then eased into top gear for the remainder of the tournament, as he has done on numerous occasions in the past.
The way he dismissed Andy Roddick and Rafael Nadal on successive days in China's second city was vintage Federer. For all David Ferrer's headline making efforts in reaching the final on debut, it was yet another case of 'welcome to my world' when he challenged the defending champion.