Nikolay Davydenko prevails over Stanislas Wawrinka in the first round – Swiss Indoors Basel 2012
Former world number three, Nikolay Davydenko of Russia, continued his march back towards the top, as he stunned the 17th ranked player from Switzerland, Stanislas Wawrinka, in the opening round of the Swiss Indoors Basel.
The Russian star controlled his nerves at the key moments, needing two tie-breakers to beat the local hero in straight sets 7-6(7), 7-6(3) after fighting for two hours and 13 minutes.
Davydenko had dropped out of the top 50 in the world rankings but he has improved on it recently. Ranked 42nd at the moment, the Russian improved his win/loss record to 24-22 with this victory. The 31-year-old has failed
to reach title match of any ATP World Tour event so far in this season, losing the semi-finals in Rotterdam, Nice and Metz.
Coming back to his match against Wawrinka, Davydenko could not make a good start, losing opening two games to trail 0-2. However, the Russian responded quickly, as he grabbed four straight games to move ahead 4-2 but then it was
Wawrinka who struck back to level it at 4-4. The following four games went with serve, taking the score to 6-6 and forcing a tie-breaker. There was nothing to separate between Davydenko and Wawrinka till 7-7 but then the former grabbed two points in a row
to win 7-6(7).
Both players were near flawless on their serve in the second set, as they did not drop it even once till the end, levelling the score at 6-6 and taking it to second successive tie-breaker. Davydenko raced to a 4-1 lead this time
and maintained his advantage till the end to seal it 7-6(3).
The Russian player’s serve statistics were not impressive, as he did not hit any ace and committed four double faults. The veteran was able to hit just 65 percent of the first serves but his conversion rate was above average, pocketing
44 of the 62 points on them. The Moscow, Russian resident did well to save nine of the 11 break threats he came across.
Davydenko will now meet either Henri Laaksonen or Paul-Henri Mathieu in the second round.
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