Federer, 20-time Grand Slam champion, closed to within 155 points of Nadal after his win last month at the Australian Open against world No.3 Marin Cilic of Croatia.
At the age of 36 years, 173 days, Federer also becomes the second-oldest man to win a Grand Slam title in the Open era after Ken Rosewall, who won the 1972 Australian Open at 37.
Sharing a video of the Swiss tennis icon, Sachin was appeared awestruck by one of his shots during the final.
Cilic face the winner of the second semifinal on Friday between Federer and Hyeon Chung of South Korea.
Cilic will play a semifinal against No. 49-ranked Kyle Edmund, who earlier beat number three seed Grigor Dimitrov in four sets on Tuesday.
Nadal will next play sixth-seeded Marin Cilic, who collected his 100th Grand Slam match win with a 6-7 (2), 6-3, 7-6 (0), 7-6 (3) victory over No. 10 Pablo Carreno Busta.
Top seed Cilic from Croatia outplayed eighth seed Frenchman Pierre-Hugues Herbert 6-3 6-2 in 64 minutes while Anderson survived a mighty scare from a dogged Mikhail Kukushkin before edging him 6-7(3) 6-4 6-2.
Cilic, who was part of the UAE Royals team in the 2015 edition, did not elaborate much but acknowledged that the money indeed was an issue.
While Cilic will be the outright favourite in the next match, Ramkumar had a confidence-boosting win over world number eight Dominic Thiem at Antalya Open last season.
The injuries threatened to end the careers of two greats towards the end of 2016, a year in which neither the Swiss great nor the Spanish giant won a Grand Slam but they came out stronger in 2017, splitting all four Majors between them.
Bhambri, ranked 116 in the world, had reached the second round when the ATP 250 event was played in Chennai in January 2017.
The tournament has moved to Pune after being hosted in Chennai for 21 years
Jack Sock finished the group stage with a 2-1 record and will next face Grigor Dimitrov in the semifinals of the year-ending tournament on Saturday.
World number one Rafael Nadal, who is hoping to recover from a knee injury in time to play in the season-ending tournament, has been drawn in Boris Becker Group.
Federer will play either David Goffin of Belgium or Jack Sock of the United States in the semifinals on Saturday.
The world number one Nadal, who won a tour-best sixth title of the season at the China Open last week, has now beaten Marin Cilic in five of their six matches.
The Chennai Open will now be held in Pune next year and would be henceforth called "Maharashtra Open".
Roger Federer expressed his concern with the mindset of the younger generation, who still have not been able to knock off the 30-plus elite from the top of the ranks.
After winning 19 titles, Roger Federer has created history at the All England Club as being the only player to win 8 titles. "The journey has been amazing", said Federer.
The big-serving Croat played with a blister on his left foot in Sunday's Wimbledon final against Roger Federer.
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