World No 1 beats debutant Diego Schwarzman 6-3, 6-2‘It feels very strange to play in front of empty stands’It is 50 years since Stan Smith edged out Rod Laver and the other great players of his day to win the game’s first season-ending tournament in a totally unsuitable hall in Tokyo, but this farewell 12th edition in
London is struggling to create the atmosphere of a bad school-sports day.
Certainly records are still tumbling, many of them at the feet of
Novak Djokovic, who this week celebrates a successful if disjointed 2020 as world No 1 for the sixth time, alongside Pete Sampras in the game’s modern history. But Djokovic’s pursuit of a sixth title here to match the absent
Roger Federer got off to a low-key start against Diego Schwartzman, his 6-3, 6-2 victory in the opening round-robin match of the Tokyo 1970 Group arriving with a smattering of applause from family and
Friends.