The top-seeded Serb —  who notched an easy 6-2, 6-4 win over Spain’s David Ferrer— qualified for the season-ending ATP championships in London thanks to his stellar week in Beijing, where he won Olympic bronze in 2008.

“This is definitely a confidence boost for me,” Djokovic said.

“Let’s see if I can keep it up,” added the 23-year-old, who now heads to Shanghai for the Masters event, with his first match set for Wednesday.

Djokovic led Ferrer 3-1 in the first set on Sunday when play was suspended at the Olympic Green Tennis Center due to heavy rain, forcing the players to come back for a second day.

The Serb seemed energized by Monday’s bright sunshine, picking up where he left off to quickly wrap up the first set as the speedy Ferrer made a number of ill-timed unforced errors from the backcourt.

The 28-year-old Spaniard, the eighth seed, mounted a spirited challenge in the second, taking a 4-2 lead, but the Serb roared back, taking the final four games and the match.

Ferrer admitted he had missed his moment, telling reporters: “When I lost that game, I lost my concentration a little bit. I couldn’t come back to play well after that.”

“I had a great ending of 2009 starting off with a win here in Beijing, so I sincerely hope I can at least repeat the success that I had in 2009,” Djokovic said. “Energy-wise, I’m fresh.”

In the women’s final under the floodlights, the 20-year-old Wozniacki — who assumes the WTA’s top ranking on Monday, dethroning the injured Serena Williams — defeated her Russian rival Vera Zvonareva, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3.

The victory was sweet revenge for the top-seeded blonde Dane, who lost to second seed Zvonareva in the semifinals at the US Open a month ago.

The two delighted the crowd with ferocious baseline rallies throughout the two-hour match. Wozniacki was a little tentative at the start of the match but stormed back to reel off five games and take the first set.

Zvonareva then took charge, forcing a third set on a chilly night. But Wozniacki stepped it up a notch, painting the lines with blistering backhands to build an early 3-0 lead that she would never surrender.

“I think just everything is working for me at the moment. I’ve got to believe I can beat anyone, and I feel in great shape. I feel that I’ve improved a lot of small things. It just has made a big difference,” Wozniacki said.

“I’m really happy about the way everything turned out this week.”

Before her victory in Beijing, the Dane won titles in Ponte Vedra Beach, Copenhagen, Montreal, New Haven and Tokyo.

Wozniacki’s loss to the 26-year-old Zvonareva at Flushing Meadows was only one of two she has suffered since Wimbledon.

In 2011, the Dane said her focus would be on winning a Grand Slam title.
 
 
Tsonga beats Lopez in 1st round in Shanghai

In Shanghai, China, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga beat an error-prone Feliciano Lopez 7-6 (4), 6-3 Monday in the opening round of the Shanghai Masters for his first win since returning from a three-month injury layoff.

Both players held serve throughout the first set before Tsonga took control of the tiebreaker with two aces and a backhand passing shot. He clinched the set with a forehand winner that skidded off the line.

The 12th-seeded Tsonga earned the only break of the match to go up 2-0 in the second set and sealed the win when Lopez hit a backhand wide. Tsonga lost in the first round of the Tokyo Open last week, his first tournament since injuring his knee in a quarterfinal loss to Andy Murray at Wimbledon.

“When you don’t play for two or three months, you lose your tennis,” Tsonga said. “When you come back, you start (from) zero. So for me, it was really important to win my first match and today I did it.” Ninth-seeded Fernando Verdasco was eliminated after wasting two set points to fall 7-6 (4), 7-5 against Thiemo de Bakker of the Netherlands.

Both players held serve throughout the first set before de Bakker capitalized on four straight errors by Verdasco to win the tiebreak.

Verdasco came back in the second set, using his powerful forehand to break de Bakker in the fourth game and take a 5-2 lead. The Dutchman faced two set points on his next service game but saved both — one with a lob over Verdasco that dropped right on the baseline — and won the next five games to close out the match.

Verdasco has fallen to players ranked outside the Top 30 in his opening matches the last three weeks. Last week, he lost to 32nd-ranked Philipp Kohlschreiber at the China Open in Beijing, and the week before that, he was beaten by 65th-ranked Benjamin Becker at the Thailand Open in Bangkok.

Jurgen Melzer of Austria, the 13th seed, overcame a tough challenge to beat 279th-ranked wildcard Yang Tsung-hua of Taiwan 6-4, 7-6 (5). Yang had seven aces to Melzer’s three, but the Austrian broke his 19-year-old opponent three times.

Also, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain beat Eduardo Schwank of Argentina 6-7 (8), 6-2, 6-4, Jeremy Chardy of France ousted Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus 7-6 (4), 6-1, and Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland defeated Gilles Simon of France 6-4, 6-1.

Wawrinka earns a second-round meeting with No. 1-ranked Rafael Nadal, who received an opening-round bye along with all the top eight seeds at the $3.24 million tournament.