Nikolay Davydenko won the biggest title of his career Sunday defeating Juan Martin del Potro 6-3, 6-4 to win the year-end Barclay’s ATP World Tour Finals in London. Davydenko became the first Russian to win the season-ending championships and pocketed $770,000 with the victory. The Russian played flawless tennis from the baseline all week, registering wins over the world’s No. 1, No. 2 and No. 5 players. On Wednesday, he beat No. 2 ranked Rafael Nadal 6-1, 7-6(4) in round-robin play, while he topped world No. 1 Roger Federer 6-2, 4-6, 7-5 in the semifinals Saturday. His win over No. 5 del Potro prevented the Argentine from moving up passed Andy Murray into the No. 4 ranking and from joining 1974 champion Guillermo Vilas as the only Argentines to win the season-ending championships.
“Yeah!” exclaimed Davydenko when on-court commentator Mark Petchey told him that he beat the Australian Open champion (Nadal), the French Open champion (Federer), the Wimbledon champion (Federer) and the US Open champion (del Potro) en route to the title.
Davydenko was a finalist at the event last year, losing to Novak Djokovic when the event was played in Shanghai, China.
“He has probably elevated himself to one of the great Russian players by winning this title,” said Robbie Koenig on the ATP’s world feed commentary.
Marat Safin and Yevgeny Kafelnikov are the only Russian men to win major singles titles – Kafelnikov bagging the 1996 French Open and the 1999 Australian Open, while Safin won the 2000 US Open and the 2005 Australian Open. Davydenko has never reached a major singles final. His win over Federer on Saturday was his first in 13 meetings with the Swiss world No. 1.