Nadal laments dip in form

London : Former world No 1 Rafael Nadal lamented his dismal form, especially against top-10 players in the second half of the season, after going down tamely 1-6, 6-7 to Russia's Nikolay Davydenko in the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals at the O2 Arena here late on Wednesday.

"I didn't arrive at this tournament with full confidence that one needs to win these matches. And in the moments that I had to play well, I didn't play well, I had mistakes," Nadal said.

Going into his second round robin match against the world No 6 from Russia, Nadal was one win away from a career record of 400 wins. But that too eluded the Spaniard as Davydenko hustled him into submission.

Both Nadal and Davydenko were in a precarious situation following first round losses to Robin Soderling and Novak Djokovic respectively on Monday.

And with one last group match remaining it looks like Nadal will be saying goodbye to London even if he wins against Djokovic today.

Nadal has been unable to arrest his slide in form and is currently 1-7 against top-10 players since his loss to Roger Federer in the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 at the Madrid final on May 17. His lone top-10 win came against world No 9 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the quarterfinals of the BNP Paribas Masters earlier this month.

In stark contrast, Davydenko seemed to be in a mighty hurry as he ran through the first set in 27 minutes to win 6-1.

In the second it looked as though the Spaniard might put up a fight after being tied 2-2, but Davydenko broke away at 3-2 and then held for 4-2.

Nadal did manage to claw back with his first break to draw level at 4-4, but his miseries continued as he hit a forehand into the net in the 11th game as Davydenko broke once again to lead 6-5. However, the Russian failed to navigate Nadal's return as the Spaniard shot back to tie 6-6 to force a tie-break that Davydenko won 7-4.

"I was mentally better today. I tried to do different things during the match like trying to play aggressive with the forehand. So that's important as I improved a bit today. And that's the idea, to keep on improving little by little each day," Nadal said.