Kuala Lumpur, Oct 3 (DPA) Nikolay Davydenko shocked himself with a victory into the final of the Malaysian Open Saturday, reversing a losing trend against Swede Robin Soderling 1-6, 7-6 (7-1), 6-2.
“It was surprising to win this match,” admitted the Russian top seed. “Robin played very well in the first set and I really had no chances.
“I was thinking that if he kept playing that way I wouldn’t stand a chance. He was serving and returning so well. But I kept fighting hard in the second and was able to win the tiebreak.”
Davydenko snapped a string of four straight losses to Soderling to move to 3-5 in their match-up as he won for the 41st time in 2009.
Davydenko, ranked eighth, will aim for a third trophy this season against the winner from a later semi between Spanish second seed Fernando Verdasco and Chile’s Fernando Gonzalez, seeded fourth.
For only the second time in 2009, a tournament’s leading four have reached the semis, duplicating the August accomplishment in Cincinnati of Roger Federer, Andy Murray, Rafel Nadal and Novak Djokovic.
All of the Kuala Lumpur semi-finalist are in the race for one of eight places at November’s ATP World Tour Finals in London.
“I would love to win this tournament,” said Davydenko, who has lifted trophies on clay over the summer in Hamburg and Umag (Croatia). “I have the confidence to win but every match is different. I’ve had many tough matches against both Verdasco and Gonzalez.”
Soderling, losing French Open finalist to Federer, stormed into early command against Davydenko, who has been nursing a sore wrist this week.
But the Russian soon warmed to his fightback task and eventually came through the winner after two hours. The contest was dead-level with nine aces and three breaks per head.
rounak