27. 11. 2009. ยท
Third seed and defending champion Novak Djokovic has been knocked out of the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals after Nikolay Davydenko beat Robin Soderling 7-6(4), 4-6, 6-3. The best Serbian tennis player defeated no.2 seed Rafael Nadal in straight sets 7-6(5), 6-3 in 1 hour and 58 minutes in his final Group B round robin match on Friday.
Djokovic and Nadal have met for the 21st time. Rafa leads their head-to-heads 14-7, but Nole is 7-3 on hard courts.
Novak made a break in the opening game of the match, but Nadal broke back immediately. Djokovic broke again in the third game and faced scare in the fourth but held to increase his lead to 3-1. The Spaniard broke back in the eighth game to equalise the score to 4-4. The set went to a tie-breaker, Nole won it 7-5.
Djokovic earned two break points in the fourth game of the second set. Nadal saved the first with a winner, but hit a forehand into the net on the second to hand Novak the break. The 22-year-old Belgrade native had a chance to break in the sixth game but the Spaniard held for 4-2. World no.3 faced a break point serving for the match at 5-3, but held and used his third match point to close the set and match 6-3.
Statistics: aces (2-4), double faults (3-1), winners (21-12), unforced errors (37-35).
”I think the season that I had this year has taken its toll on me a little bit in this tournament,” said Djokovic. “I’m not saying that I should have done some things different. You try to win every match you play. Unfortunately for me, the exhaustion came in the tournament where I should have been the freshest: here. But, still, I managed to get two out of three wins. If I finish today the season, I will be very happy to finish in this way, and just hope to rest well for 2010.”
Nole got two wins out of three matches and earned 400 ATP points.
