If you put any stock in rankings and statistics, Nikolay Davydenko's title run in Miami was no fluke and his upset of Rafael Nadal in the final was at best a minor one. He is, after all, ranked fourth in the world. He had an 11-3 record in finals coming into the match. He's finished inside the top five for the last three years. He's also built for hard courts: few bodies in tennis are better suited to running, and not breaking down, on hard surfaces than Davydenko's light and fast frame.
Davydenko beating Nadal? That's no shock. Davydenko beating Nadal pretty easily and Nadal making a lot of mistakes? Well, that did surprise me. Before this match, Davydenko had won one Masters tournament in his career and he hadn't been the best competitor against top 10 opponents (after his match against Roddick, his career record was 15-38). Nadal was the opposite: He came into the final with a 32-18 record against top 10 players. If Davydenko was going to win, I thought, it would take great effort, as well as lots of rallies and lots of sharp angles, to break down Nadal's defense. I came to this match thinking the outcome would turn on the answer to this question: Would Davydenko be able to sustain his offense--and make no mistake, the Russian has ground strokes as offensive, and crisp, as any in the sport--long enough to keep Nadal on the defensive?....more

(via tennis.com)



Prince Nikolay