Rafael Nadal lost his second match of his ATP World Tour Finals campaign as Nikolay Davydenko won 6-1, 7-6, (7-4) to end his title hopes in London.
The world No.2, who was defeated in his first match against Robin Soderling, got off to a shaky start in his second match, as Davydenko broke the Spaniard in the second and sixth game and produced a sublime combination of baseline and net play to take the first set with relative ease.
The six-time Grand Slam champion needed to respond to keep his Tour Final aspirations alive, and he did just that in the second set by recovering from a break down on two occasions to take the game into a second set tie-break.
However it was the No.6 seed who prevailed in an exciting tie-break, which produced a number of enthralling rallies. Davydenko sealed the match in 1 hour 47 minutes with a booming winner after earning two match points against a beleaguered world No.2
That's sport," said a philosophical Nadal. "I didn't arrive with the confidence you need to win these matches.
You have some better moments, some bad moments. When you have the bad moments, you have to work to improve."
The win for Davydenko has kept his hopes of reaching the semi-finals alive, as he plays his final round-robin group match on Friday against Soderling.
“I showed my best tennis today, and we'll see if I can do the same thing on Friday," said Davydenko after beating Nadal for the fourth time in his career.
In the Group B doubles match, second seeds Bob and Mike Bryan made amends for their first match defeat with a 6-3 6-4 win over Lukas Dlouhy and Leander Paes.
The American pair gained a break of serve once in each set and won 78% of points on serve to prevail in 84 minutes.
The Bryan brothers will now need to win their final match on Friday against Lukasz Kubot and Oliver Marach and Bob Bryan appreciates the need to continue their improvement if they are to reach the semi-finals.
“Every match here at the World Tour Finals gets tougher and tougher. So we're expecting good stuff from those guys.”
Meanwhile today sees the climax of both the singles and doubles in Group A with Andy Murray hoping to reach the semi-finals with a win over Fernando Verdasco, whilst Juan Martin Del Potro still harbours semi-final aspirations of his own as he meets Roger Federer this evening.
In the doubles event, Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic meet No.3 seeds Mahesh Bhupathi and Mark Knowles whilst Frantisek Cermak and Michal Mertinak play Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowsi tonight.
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