Defending champ Davydenko out of Malaysian Open
Defending champion Nikolay Davydenko has been defeated in his opening match at the Malaysian Open.
The second seed was upset by world No. 102 Igor Andreev 7-6(5), 5-7, 6-3 in the second round as his poor run of form continues.
In a first set where both players were broken once each, and where Davydenko served with a dismal first serve percentage of 49%, it was Andreev who prevailed in the tiebreak, leaving the 2009 winner needing to produce a come-from-behind win to keep his title defence hopes alive.
Davydenko set about doing so as he took a 5-2 lead in the second set, but the 29-year-old stumbled as he served to level the match, with Andreev breaking his Russian counterpart in two consecutive service games to level at 5-5 before Davydenko secured his third break of the set in its 11th game and held serve to close out the set at the third time of asking.
Andreev, however, was not to be denied the upset, securing what proved to be the decisive break to take a 4-2 lead in the final set and going on to close out the match in two hours and 47 minutes.
Davydenko arrived in Kuala Lumpur after a lean few months on court following his return to competition from a broken wrist and seeking to find the form that took him not just to the title at the Malaysian Open in 2009, but also the Shanghai Masters 1000 and the World Tour Finals in London last year.
It was not to be.
Andreev will now face qualifier Milos Raonic in the quarter-finals, after the 237th-ranked Canadian produced a surprise 6-7(8), 7-6(9), 6-3 win against seventh seed Sergiy Stakhovsky in his second round match.
Also winning through to the final eight today were sixth seed Marcos Baghdatis (who defeated Santiago Giraldo 7-5, 7-5) and fourth seed Mikhail Youzhny, the latter reaching the quarter-finals after prevailing in a three-set tussle against the Ukraine’s Alexandr Dolgopolov.
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