Juan Martin del Potro earned his revenge after six losses this season to hometown hero Roger Federer when he won the Swiss Indoors title, 6-4, 6-7 (5/7), 7-6 (7/3) .

The upset victory over the top seed in two and three-quarter hours denied world number one Federer a sixth title from the last seven editions at the St Jakobshalle and kept him from the 77th of his career.

Del Potro last beat the Swiss star in 2009 when he captured the US Open at Federer’s expense as well as posting a victory in the year-end final two months later.

Del Potro won the 13th trophy of his career and improved to 62-14 on the season.

“This is a great win for me, a dream,” said Del Potro, who finished with 10 aces to the 18 of Federer, holder of six trophies in 2012.

“It’s an honour to be on the court with Roger, who is the greatest of all time.”

Federer suffered his first loss at the tournament which he has ruled since the 2009 final against Novak Djokovic.

Williams triumph

In Istanbul, Serena Williams completed her sensational 2012 comeback by easing to a 6-4, 6-3 win over Maria Sharapova for a third WTA Championships title.

The 31-year-old’s victory came at the end of a spectacular year in which she also collected the Wimbledon, Olympic and US Open titles.

“It feels great to have achieved my dream,” said Williams.“Maria won the last time we played in the Championships final, but she’s ranked ahead of me so I had nothing to lose.”

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.