“I had no problems with him,” Nikolay Davydenko dismisses Rafael Nadal as any ‘ordinary’ player on hard courts
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Nikolay Davydenko and Rafael Nadal
Rafael Nadal is arguably one of the greatest players to have played the sport. He has won 22 grand slam titles and at the age of 36, he still is one of the favorites in any tournament he enters. Over the past two decades, Nadal has had many memorable rivalries against some of the best apart from Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer but not many have a positive H2H record against him.
Nikolay Davydenko, a former World No.3 from Russia, has a positive 6-5 H2H record against Nadal. Interestingly, he has won 6 out of 7 of their hard court meetings and all of these meetings have come when Nadal was in his prime. Recently in an interview with Clay Tennis, Davydenko spoke about his rivalry with Nadal and said that tennis is all about matchups.
He said that he never had any problems with Nadal on hard courts whereas he always found beating James Black on hardcourts very difficult. He reasoned that his game was adaptive to Nadal’s slow game while he found it difficult when the ball came with less spin.
“In tennis, it is about matchups – my game matched up well with Nadal’s on hard courts, and I had no problems with him. On the other hand, I could never beat James Blake on hard because he was hitting hard and he was looking to finish off points in two or three shots,” he said.
He then said that for me, matches on hardcourt against clay-court specialists were the easiest due to the spin they created. “Against clay-court specialists – Spaniards and Argentinians – those were the easiest matches for me on hardcourt, because they play long rallies and hit with a lot of spin. I had it tough against North Americans who hit hard and flat and wanted short points,” he said.
Roger Federer was the toughest opponent in his career for Nikolay Davydenko
Davydenko added that Roger Federer was the toughest opponent for him. He reasoned that his forehand was very fast with an accurate serve. He added that he didn’t manage to have any control over the Swiss maestro. In their 21 meetings, Federer holds a 19-2 H2H record against him.
“So, Federer was my toughest opponent. Why? Because his forehand was extremely fast and his serve was very accurate, I could not gain any sort of control against him,” he said.
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Lakshya Chopra
(2595 Articles Published)