Shanghai: Roger Federer reached the ATP Masters Cup semi-finals for a fifth straight year and helped defending champion David Nalbandian along with him on Thursday.
Nalbandian ousted Andy Roddic 6-2, 7-6 (4) on Thursday for his first win of the round-robin stage. That assured Federer a place in the semis.
Nalbandian needed top-raked Federer to beat Ivan Ljubicic in the last Red Group round-robin to advance.
And Federer delivered 7-6 (2), 6-4, extending his winning streak to 27 and making him 15-0 in Masters Cup round-robin matches.
Federer, broken in the opening game, closed with an ace in 1-hour, 33-minutes after breaking fourth-ranked Ljubicic once in each set.
The 25-year-old Swiss star has made the Masters Cup semi-finals each year since his debut in 2002, and is chasing his third title at the season-ending championship.
Roddick, who blew three match points against Federer two days ago, slumped out on a countback.
"It's a downer, don't get lot of positives away from the last four months," Roddick said.
Nalbandian, Roddick and Croatia's Ljubicic all ended 1-2, with Nalbandian having the best percentage of sets won.
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The night started badly for the fifth-ranked Roddick, who was broken in the opening game and again in his third.
Nalbandian kept up the pressure in the second set, breaking Roddick in the seventh game on consecutive errors from the American.
But he admitted getting nervous when serving for the match, Roddick breaking back to level at 5-5 after getting a breakpoint on the 24-year-old Argentine's double-fault.
In the tiebreaker, Roddick wasted a mini-break at 3-1 and then had a double-fault - his first of the match - to give Nalbandian a 5-3 cushion.
Nalbandian set up match point with an overhead winner and closed when Roddick netted a return.
Roddick was philosophical about ending the season on two losses.
He slipped out of the top 10 in July for the first time in four years before joining forces with Jimmy Connors and compiling an 18-2 record in the summer circuit, including a US Open final loss to Federer.
"I think two nights ago was a little bit more emotionally taxing than tonight," Roddick said.
"Let's put it in perspective. Going into the summer, I think I was 18 in the champions race with people questioning if I would ever play top-level tennis again. I righted that."
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