With unexpected easy efforts, world number one Roger Federer and David Nalbandian set up a final showdown at the ATP tennis Masters Cup on Sunday after both defeated their opponents in straight sets in Shanghai on Saturday.

Beating top Russian Nikolay Davydenko 6-0, 7-5 in one hour 26, minutes and 43 seconds, Nalbandian came out the first Argentine to reach the final of a year-ending championship for 31 years since Guillermo Vilas won the title in 1974.

The 23-year-old thus set up a final matchup with world number one Roger Federer with the victory as the superlative Swiss made short work of his semifinal clash against seventh seed Gaston Gaudio 6-0, 6-0 earlier the night.

On the doubles part, a rematch of the 2003 Masters doubles final on Saturday, pitting Bob and Mike Bryan and the duo of Michael Llodra and Fabrice Santoro, destroyed a hope from the Bryan brothers to hit a consecutive three-year record to be the doubles winners of the year-ending event, beating them 6-3, 7-6(7).

The French duo Llodra and Santoro then made the final and will take Leander Paes of India and Nedad Zimonjic from Serbia and Montenegro after the fifth-seeded latter beat third-seeded Zimbabwe pair Wayne Black and Kevin Ullyett 6-3, 6-4 earlier in another doubles semifinals.

Superlative netman to world tennis, Federer, has made a record with Saturday's semifinal. It's the first time back to the 1970s that a year-ending match of world tennis ending up in less than anhour and with a score of 6-0, 6-0.

Federer, holding a 4-0 record against Gaudio and having won hislast 13 matches against Argentine opponents before Saturday's match, won on 5 aces, 22 winners and 9 out of 11 net points against 16 unforced errors in the semifinal match less than 50 minutes.

Gaudio, seeded 7th on a rank of ninth in the world for the 4.45million US dollars season-ending event, cracked just 3 winners throughout the match while making 9 double-faults and 22 unforced errors.

Committing 4 double-faults in a game, Gaudio was broken by the world number one Federer in as early as the second game and his first serve into the match, which set the tune of the match.

"There's no excuse," said Gaudio at a post-match news conference."I think that I was playing against a guy who is the best in history in a surface that he is so much better than me. There's not much to say."

Federer has built upon an imposing 16-1 record at the Masters Cup, with his only loss came to Lleyton Hewitt in the Shanghai 2002 semifinals.

It seemed a task impossible for anybody, not just the 26-year-old Gaudio, to win over Federer who has been beaten by no man since June.

With Saturday's victory, Federer reached his third consecutive Tennis Masters Cup final and extended his winning streak to 35 matches, the fifth-longest winning streak in the Open Era and a span that takes in five titles including two grand slam titles.

The 23-year-old Nalbandian cracked 2 aces, none of double-faultand 21 winners against 13 unforced errors for the win.

Davydenko, who has taken the place of Marat Safin to be the highest ranked Russian in the world and playing on his debut in the season-ending event, had been attempting to become the first Russian reaching the final since Yevgeny Kafelnikov was runner-up at the ATP Tour World Championship in 1997.

The 24-year-old, however, made 29 unforced errors throughout the match though winning 4 aces and 17 winners.

Davydenko, who had made his Masters Cup debut on Monday by defeating all-time great Andre Agassi 6-4, 6-2 in his first round robin match, held a chance of coming back in the middle of the second set when he broke Nalbandian in the sixth game, beating hisArgentine opponent to no answers.

But Nalbandian, ranked 12th in the world, soon broke back afterthe seventh-ranked Davydenko wasted three game points on his own serve.

Again the Argentine made a successful break in the eleventh game before turning two match points into win in the following.