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Nadal lives up to his low expectations in London

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Updated Nov 25, 2009 7:44 PM ET
     
 

LONDON

The form book was shredded on a day of upsets at the ATP World Tour Finals here when Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, the second and third seeds, lost their round robin matches Wednesday — results that mean Nadal is out and Djokovic is teetering on the edge of elimination. Djokovic — who crashed to Sweden's Robin Soderling 7-6 (5), 6-1 — still has a chance because he won his first match, but Nadal — having lost both his matches in straight sets — cannot recover. The Spaniard, who has not won a title since Rome last May, battled as hard as he could against the clean-hitting Russian Nikolay Davydenko but still suffered his second straight defeat here, going down 6-1, 7-6 (4) in 1 hour, 47 minutes. The sellout crowd of 17,400 was offered the sight of two of the world's greatest defensive players sending each other racing to the far reaches of the court in pursuit of brilliantly angled drives but, hard as he tried, Nadal could not come up with sufficient penetration to throw Davydenko out of his stride. Nevertheless, the little Russian appeared to be wincing in pain after some of the more demanding rallies at the end. The result was not as big a shock as it might appear because Davydenko had worked out how to beat Nadal long ago. In the final of the Miami Masters in March 2008, he had produced an absolutely stunning display of perfect hitting to beat Nadal 6-4, 6-2. When his timing is that good, Davydenko is very difficult to beat because his quick feet get him to the ball in time to create the angles from which he can reap constant reward. That was the case tonight and, even though Nadal came back at him in the second set from 2-4 down, he could never find the consistency on his forehand to dominate any stage of the match. Serves were swapped in the 11th and 12th games of the second set, with Nadal forcing a tiebreak as he finally connected with the kind of forehand that has destroyed so many worthy opponents. The shot let him down on the opening point of the tiebreaker, but Davydenko, showing signs of nerves, followed with a double fault and then hit a simple forehand wide. The Russian cleared his mind quickly enough to conjure up two amazing angles off his forehand — shots that took Nadal so far out of court that recovery was impossible. At 6-4, Davydenko completed his fourth victory in eight meetings over his rival with a great forehand winner. Nadal's disappointment was tempered by the fact that he did not come to London with any great expectations. "First thing to know is how you are playing," he said. "I know I am not playing well enough to think about challenging for No. 1, so this is not too difficult to accept. Mentally I was a little better today — I tried different things, tried to be more aggressive with the forehand. But there is only one way to improve the situation. Work. It is what I have done all my life." Earlier Djokovic's 11-match winning streak that had seen him win titles in Basel and Paris came to an abrupt end because, physically, he just hit the wall. Asked if he was tired, the Serb had a one word answer — "Very." Unhappily, Djokovic's stamina has always posed a question mark over his career and certainly he seemed to have nothing left in the tank after a tight first set that Soderling deservedly won on the basis of his cracking service returns and deadly forehand winners. The Swede, who shocked the tennis world by beating Nadal at Roland Garros before going on to reach the final, has made the most of his chance here, having replaced the injured Andy Roddick in the draw. He has already clinched a spot in the semifinals on Saturday because he has yet to drop a set. "Well, it's great," Soderling said. "Top nine guys in the world here and I won two matches in straight sets against the world No. 2 and No. 3. I couldn't have asked for anything more." Richard Evans, who commentated at Wimbledon on BBC Radio for 20 years, has been covering tennis since the 1960s and has reported on more than 150 Grand Slams. He is the author of 15 books, including the official history of the Davis Cup and the unofficial history of the modern game in "Open Tennis." He lives in Florida but is still on the tour 20 weeks in the year.

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