London: Roger Federer's victory over Jo-Wilfred Tsonga which gave the maestro his sixth ATP World Tour title, has also taken the Swiss to third position in the world rankings, while Britain's Andy Murray dropped one place to fourth.
The former world No 1 is closing in on the beleaguered Spaniard Rafael Nadal who failed to manage a semi-final berth in London. Serbian Novak Djokovic still holds a big lead over second-placed Nadal with 13,675 points.
"It feels very special, indeed," admitted Federer, who has a 17-match winning streak. "I've been trying to sort of block it out for the entire tournament, the entire time I've been here in London. I just tried to recuperate from Basel and Paris and hopefully get through the round-robin stages. So now it's finally sort of reality that I've been able to win six (Barclays ATP) World Tour Finals. It's an amazing feeling. I know it's one of my greatest accomplishments."
"This definitely is an amazing finish again to the season," said Federer, who finishes in the year-end Top 3 of the ATP Rankings for a ninth straight season. "I've never finished so strong."
"I thought I played well," said Federer. "Look, I thought Jo played well. Could I have won it easier? I guess. I had it in my hands. I had a chance to go a double break in the second (set). I had chances to serve it out. I had chances in the tie-breaker. Yeah, it wasn't meant to be. I had to go through the third set, which was tough, but eventually I made it, which felt probably even better going through three sets. The relief was amazing. The joy, of course, as you can imagine, was great."
Tsonga said he was satisfied with the fight.
"Today I fought all I can. I'm just happy tonight because I had a good week. Of course, to win is better but I gave everything. Tonight I can look [at] myself in the mirror and say 'Yeah, you fought enough'," he said.
"They (the crowd) supported me a lot. It was really fair from the English crowd. He was better than me in the first set. Also in the second set. But I took the first set point in the tie-break."
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