Nikolay Davydenko produced a battling display against Robin Soderling to win 7-6 (7-4) 4-6 6-3 and secure the last semi-final spot at the ATP World Tour Finals.
After Novak Djokovic’s victory over Rafael Nadal in the earlier Group B match, the Russian knew he needed to inflict a first defeat of the week on Soderling in order to join the Swede in the knockout stages.
The victory ensured the end of defending champion Djokovic’s tournament and Davydenko will now face world No.1 Roger Federer in this afternoon’s first singles semi-finals.
Soderling plays Juan Martin Del Potro in the second semi-final later today despite last night’s defeat in which he served powerfully in the early exchanges.
With the first set going to serve throughout, a tie-break was needed to separate the pair and after three successive mini-breaks, Davydenko converted the first of two set points to take the lead.
Soderling, who had won six of the nine previous meetings between the pair, gained an important break of serve in the ninth game thanks to some effective groundstrokes. The Swede held the advantage and served out the set to guarantee top spot in Group B.
The final set proved far more critical for the Russian as he seeked to join the No.8 seed in qualifying from Group B. After breaking to love in the sixth game to open up a 4-2 lead, Davydenko closed out the match in two hours and four minutes to set up a semi-final clash with Federer.
After failing to beat the Swiss on twelve previous occasions, the Russian is hoping to continue his form this week in the semi-finals: “I've played three great matches here and I would like to play the same way as today. I hope I can run well tomorrow and make no mistakes."
Soderling meets Del Potro in the other semi-final, the pair having met twice before with Del Potro winning their most recent clash at the start of the year.
"It's going to be a tough match, for sure, he plays really well, serves big and he's hitting his forehand very well," said Soderling.
In the final doubles round-robin match, second seeds Mike and Bob Bryan defeated Lukasz Kubot and Olivier Marach 6-3 6-4 to reach the semi-finals. Aware that they needed to win the match in straight sets, the Americans produced a dynamic display to give them a 2-1 match record and a 4-2 sets record in the group.
The win put them above Kubot and Marach by one set, after their opponents also compiled a 2-1 record in round-robin play but finished with a 4-3 set win-loss mark.
"We played a good match," said Mike Bryan. " We knew to expect a tough match. I thought we played our best match of the tournament, did everything really well."
The Bryan brothers can claim the year-end world No.1 ranking from Nenad Zimonjic and Daniel Nestor if they can win the doubles event in London.
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