Fed surprised at Murray mauling

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Roger Federer was surprised at the ease with which he able to dispose of world No.5 Andy Murray in the ATP World Tour Finals on Tuesday.

The 29-year-old simply had too much firepower for Murray who - along with Rafael Nadal - is the only player in the world's top 10 to have a winning record over the Swiss.

Federer swept the Scot aside 6-4 6-2 in just 76 minutes at London's O2 Arena and after the match claimed he did not expect such a convincing win.

"That it went as well as it did today I'm quite surprised, I'm almost shocked to be honest, but obviously very happy," Federer said.

"I knew I had my hands full today as Andy beat me in the last two big finals, so I'm surprised how clean the result is, but I don't think Andy played his best match, that's for sure."

"I'm happy with how I'm playing and we'll see how the next match goes against (Robin) Soderling."

Highlighting Federer's dominance was his performance on serve, winning 21 of 24 points on his first serve and 15 out of 20 on his second. The 16-time Grand Slam trophy winner was amazed when told the statistics after the game.

"That's a bit strange - Andy's a good returner, one of the best we have," he said.

The win put Federer on top of Group B with one game remaining in the round-robin stage. It all but guarantees him a place in the semi-finals ahead of Tuesday's late game between Soderling and David Ferrer, who Federer thumped 6-1 6-4 on Sunday.

For Murray, the loss will raise more doubts about his ability to perform on the big stage. Although he holds an 8-6 edge in career head-to-head meetings with Federer, he has lost their only two Grand Slam clashes and now two of their three ATP World Tour Finals tussles.

The 23-year-old was pragmatic when asked about his performance.

"I did the two most important things in tennis very poorly today, which is serve and return," Murray said. "And against someone as good as Roger, you can't do them badly."

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