First time in career, Novak Djokovic of Serbia beat Nikolay Davydenko of Russia during the Masters Cup tennis tournament in Shanghai.
Photo: Reuters
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Djokovic Advanced to Masters Cup Semis Ahead of Rivals
World No. 3 Novak Djokovic became the first player to advance to the semis of the Masters Cup. For this purpose, the Serbian defeated Russia’s Nikolay Davydenko in the second match. For Davydenko, the only chance to progress to the last four is to overwhelm Juan Martin del Potro.
Both Davydenko and Djokovic started their Masters Cup route with victories; the Russian saw off Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, while the Serbian prevailed over del Potro. So the success in the yesterday’s match would have booked a place in the semifinals for the winner.
Strange as it might seem, Davydenko and Djokovic had opposed each other only once before yesterday. That match was played in Moscow in the first round of Davis Cup and Djokovic withdrew after the third set.
According to Djokovic, he was really in-form for the yesterday’s event. Nevertheless, Davydenko had plenty of chances to defeat the Serbian and yielded to him after a tough battle (6-7 (3-7) 6-0 5-7. Nikolay, who usually sticks to the drag-on practice, broke in the first game of the match. The score was 5-3 and the Russian was serving for the first set when he started making mistakes, which number was numerous. Two aces by Djokovic and Davydenko’s double-fault at set ball decided the outcome.
Davydenko crushed his opponent in the second set with the starring score of 6-0 but suffered another fatal decline in the third set, when the score was 5-5 and the set was nearing the tie-break, which didn’t happen though. Djokovic progressed to 6-5 and served for the win.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 12, 2008
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