N. . .Ole!

Perhaps Jimmy Arias, the delightfully frank Tennis Channel commentator, put it best when a camera cut to a group of Swiss fans madly waving their national flag during Stan Wawrinka’s match with Novak Djokovic today at the ATP World Tour Finals.

“Do these Swiss fans even see the score?” Arias wondered aloud.

At that point, top-seeded Djokovic had just cracked Wawrinka’s serve for the fourth time in the match to lead 6-3, 3-0. The punishment he was inflicting on Wawrinka, the Swiss No. 2 behind Roger Federer and the No. 3 seed in London this week, was becoming so severe you wished the chair umpire had a boxing referee’s authority to stop the fight. It mercifully ended three games later.

You could project Arias’ sentiment to the showdown that so many are hoping for at this tournament, another clash between Djokovic and Federer. That one never seems to get old, the way Federer vs. Rafael Nadal did. Federer still leads Djokovic in head-to-head encounters, 19-17. The 17-time Grand Slam champion also still has a shot at snatching the year-end No. 1 ranking out of Djokovic’s hands, at least for the next 18 hours. But the way Djokovic has been playing makes you want to caution Federer fans to “be careful what you wish for.”

Today’s match was regarded with great promise during this appallingly flat week. All eight round-robin matches have been completed without a single dust-up. There hasn’t been a three-set battle, and there’s only been one tiebreaker played—and Federer made a laughter of it, claiming it 7-0. The way things are going, Milos Raonic, who hasn’t won a match in two tries, ought to receive a special award for having reached a set point against Federer prior to that tiebreak.

Wawrinka had impressively crushed Tomas Berdych in his first match, 6-1, 6-1, and as Federer’s Davis Cup wingman an upset of Djokovic would have been a valuable gift to his pal. At a minimum it would have halted the ferocious momentum Djokovic has created. It also would have ensured that Djokovic could not lock up the year-end No. 1 ranking in the round-robin stage. But thanks to his 6-3, 6-0 demolition of Wawrinka, Djokovic can lock up the year-end honors by Friday evening, on the eve of the knockout, semifinal stage.

Wawrinka did get off to a terrific start, bulling his way to a break in the first game and then holding serve. The two games took 17 minutes, and it looked as if this crowd would finally get its money’s worth. But after a hold, Djokovic went on a tear, winning 16 of 17 points as he broke Wawrinka twice and found himself leading 4-2 with serve to come.

Djokovic’s astonishing barrage of groundstrokes pushed Wawrinka back and stretched him from side to side. At the same time, the world No. 1 put on a demonstration of mobility and quickness. I wouldn’t exactly call him balletic—at times it looks like the plastic Serb is going to fly to pieces—but I wouldn’t hesitate to describe him as devastating.

“I think I covered the court very well, got a lot of balls back, mixed up the pace, got him off the comfort zone,” Djokovic told the press afterwards. As if to show this was no mere accident, he added: “That's something that was part of my game plan.”

If you wanted to get all nit-picky about exactly why Djokovic was so able to have his way in just over an hour against a man whose groundstrokes are so dangerous, look to the serve stats. Wawrinka found the box with just 48 percent of his first serves, winning fewer than half the points when he did connect, and he was even more beleaguered when he had to hit second serves—he won just 26 percent of those points.

Djokovic played so aggressively and moved so well that the most telling stat may be that he approached the net 20 times and won 16 of those points. At some point, even the most hardened baseliner looks silly standing around near the service notch while his opponent is somewhere near the flower boxes, trying to dig out a retrieval.

Passing shots? Wawrinka won exactly one point at the net in seven visits.

Wait, there’s more. Djokovic broke Wawrinka five times, bringing his tournament return-game stats to 11 breaks in 14 attempts against Berdych and Wawrinka. Those two are ranked No. 7 and No. 9 respectively in the “service games won” category on tour. Perhaps it’s some consolation to Federer fans that their man is ranked No. 3 in that statistical department. But the way things are breaking, if Djokovic and Federer meet, perhaps Djokovic might have to settle for breaking Federer a mere two times per set. I think they call this “cold comfort.”

Not so fast, though. The one caveat this match demands is that Wawrinka played right into Djokovic’s hands. Ineffective at the service notch, and relatively weak in the area in which Djokovic most shines—movement—Wawrinka was forced into rallying contests he could not reasonably hope to win, not the way Nole has been playing.

All this might cause a new furrow to show up on Federer’s brow, but right now he’s got more immediate concerns. Tomorrow he plays Andy Murray, with whom he’s split 22 matches right down the middle.