Davydenko leads top seeds into second round of Championship

Dubai: 2009 ATP World Tour Final champion Nikolay Davydenko led a couple of top seeds into the second round of the 2010 Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships Wedensday.

Davydenko, winner of the season-ending ATP World Tour Final in London, dug in deep before coming through 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-1 in more than two hours against Frenchman Florent Serra to advance for a second round meeting against Germany’s Michael Berrer.

Earlier, sixth-seeded Marin Cilic had carved out a clinical 6-2, 6-4 win against veteran Frenchman Arnaud Clement to advance to a second round meeting against Austrian qualifier Stefan Koubek, while Jo-Wilfried Tsonga became the only Frenchman from half a dozen in the main draw to survive here when fellow countryman Michael Llodra withdrew due to exhaustion.

Llodra, it may be recalled had won both the singles and doubles title at the Marseille Open last Sunday. However, Llodra gave it all as he matched Tsonga, if not undid him, through a tight first set that the Australian Open semifinalist went on to win 11-9. Llodra then announced he was retiring.

Unnoticed though, Indian qualifier Somdev Devvarman had caused one of the bigger upsets of the afternoon by clinching a 6-4, 7-5 win against 52-ranked Swiss journeyman Marco Chiudinelli, yet to fully recover from a flu attack last week.

Andy Murray’s second round opponent for Wednesday was also known after Serbian Janko Tipsarevic outgunned Italian Andreas Seppi 7-6 (4), 7-5.

But it was the fourth-seeded Davydenko’s patient battle on centre court that took most of the attention here yesterday. He took his time to settle in and found things going against him as he lost a tough first set tie-break 7-5.

However, he kept his focus and patience in the second to get one lucky break in the tenth game to win the set 6-4.

That one break seemed to be the breaking point for the 59th ranked Frenchman as Davydenko rattled off the next five games with breaks in the second and fourth to win after two hours and ten minutes of hard work on centre court to improve his career record to 4-1against his French opponent. “I guess maybe it was too many mistakes from me.  Normally I come into the first match of every tournament trying not to make mistakes and just try to find control in the game and step by step find my game,” Davydenko related.

And once Davydenko found his game there was nothing his French opponent could do. “I was thinking if he won the first set, maybe I still have a chance because if I win second set, maybe I have easy in the third,” he added.

Cilic, who has had amazing success this year with a couple of ATP Tour titles and a semifinal finish at the Australian Open, broke in the very first game and then notched a second one to take the set 6-2 in 33 minutes.

In the second, both players went on serve till the sixth seed from Croatia broke in the fifth and then held for 4-2. He grew in confidence serving a love game to lead 5-3 and then wrapped up the set and match 6-4 in exactly an hour and a half.

On Court No.1, Devvarman won the first set 6-4 and then broke in eleventh to serve out 7-5 in the second to advance to a meeting against eighth seeded Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis Wednesday.

“I had the flu for a week and didn’t play for a while. I have had great experiences here during the past so I decided to give it a shot. I was expecting it to be a very difficult game as I am not comfortable as yet. He [Devvarman] played a solid game and he didn’t miss much,” Chuidinelli rued.