Nikolay Davydenko bulldozes Michael Russell in the 2nd round – Winston-Salem Open 2011
Tuesday, 23rd August, incensed local fans, when Nikolay Davydenko played his second round match of Winston-Salem Open 2011, An ATP Tour 250 event, against the local old dog, Michael Russell.
With an overwhelming performance, Davydenko, aged 30, overthrew the American on his own ground. Winning in straight sets, it took the Russian 74 minutes finish off set 2 and win. The match was played at Wake Forest University,
Winston Salem, USA on Hard Circuit.
Previously, both of them have had a vicious fight every time they went head on against each other. Playing mostly at hard courts, the two oldies have met 4 times and out of that the 30-year-old Russian has dominated 75 percent
of the times.
Although the pundits had a larger bid on the American, however, Davydenko fought against all odds. Playing his first match of the Winston Open, the Russian stunned everyone with his startling performance. Surprisingly, he had been
on a losing streak previously as he won only 4 out of his past 10 matches.
The unlucky American had been practicing hard on the court just to make an impact at an easy platform. Working up through the qualifiers the former world No. 60 had an unlucky evening dropping off from the event by the hands of
a struggler.
Nevertheless, the match started off with Russell, world No.95, serving first and taking away the opener, 1-0. Formerly world No.3, Davydenko followed with levelling the scores at 1-1 and switched the serve. Breaking the American
in the next, the Russian gained lead in game 3 and served the next, 2-1.
Davydenko then pulled off with 2 straight games breaking Russell in game 5 and led 4-1. The scores then hiked up; however, the American could not follow up and eventually lost the first set, 6-2.
Continuing with set 2, Russell served to open the set, however, lost the starter and gave away a breakpoint. Taking the advantage, Davydenko extended his lead to 2-0 winning the following tussle.
The American pulled one off before the Russian blistered another two games straight to increase his lead to 4-1 winning a breakpoint in game 5. Russell, on the other hand, won his first and last breakpoint of the match before he
was again broken by the former world No.3 and led on to lose the second set and the match to the Russian.
Davydenko took less than 75 minutes to walk to his 3rd round seat beating the American and ending his winning streak. The former world number three now sits comfortable to play against the 9th seed of the
event, Sergiy Stakhovsky, for the quarter-final round fight.
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