Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, via d.yimg.com

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Thanks largely to it's most famous resident, the city of Basel, Switzerland recently had it's tournament upgraded to 500 level status.  And while I'm sure Roger Federer was happy to see his hometown event promoted, he may not be so happy with the tougher competition the boost brought into his playground.

Novak Djokovic, the first top five player Roger Federer has faced in Basel in quite some time, knocked him out in an extremely impressive display of fearless tennis, winning the Davidoff Swiss Indoors final 6-4, 4-6, 6-2.

Despite an unspoken feeling clear among commentators that Djokovic would capitulate in order to let Federer win the tournament that practically bears his name, Djokovic never relented.  And it seemed Federer always expected him to, even with so many ranking points on the line.

While this match could wind up meaning a lot in the long run, it could have short term consequences as well.  Djokovic and Federer have a 50-50 shot of landing in the same group in London in a couple weeks, and could very easily face each other in the finals this week in Paris.

At least Federer can rest easy until then, knowing that he truly broke ground this week by having Nike whip up a brown outfit for the week he was announced as a spokesperson for Lindt Chocolates.  That's some pretty impressive branding right there.