IN MELBOURNE
TOMORROW they meet in the quarters, Russian and Swiss. Nikolay Davydenko is amused by his new status, Roger Federer is unamused by Davydenko's recent hold on him. After 12 straight wins, twice he has lost recently to the Russian running man. It is two times too many.
Still, athletes must ensure defeat does not get to them, so they twist it, turn it. Federer reminds us those were three-set matches, this is five sets. It favours the better player and he is the better player.
Federer shows his strength in a recent match at the Australian Open. PHOTO: Reuters
Yet Federer concedes the Russian moves well, returns well, and now serves well: "He would not hit his first serve, and if he would, he would miss it and then he would serve a ton of double faults. That would obviously give many more opportunities to break. (But) in Doha when I played him, he hit 27 out of 27 first serves into the court clocking them at around 190. That makes it a bit more difficult to break."
They play in the afternoon. It is supposed to be sunny. The ball will fly and this might suit the harder-hitting Federer. It may seem unimportant, but tennis matches are built on small things.
Explained Davydenko: "If you see between day session, night session, a little bit different situation. Like temperature go down and start to get cold and the balls fly not so fast like in day."
Both times he beat Federer was at night.
Tennis has old rules, ancient wisdoms, obvious advice. Like grab the first set. It's a relief. It allows you to be yourself.
Especially Federer, who calls himself a "great front-runner", and explained what it meant to have the first set in your pocket: "It's just maybe more comfortable. You don't ask yourself any questions of 'do I need to change anything around'. Because what you've been doing has been working, so you keep that up and you can go for a bit more maybe. I think that's what top guys do really well overall. If you look at it, I obviously have done it so many times I know exactly what I need to do."
Davydenko, not a regular on Rod Laver Arena like his rival, will not be intimidated. Neither will Federer. But he may be unsure.
Taking reporters on a quick journey through his mind, he said: "I'm never intimidated. Not that that's good or bad. I'm just saying that sometimes you're nervous before a match and you don't know why that is. Tonight (against Hewitt), for some reason, I was unsure if I was gonna be able to bring my best game.
"I don't know why. I told myself I got to be aggressive and go after my shots, and hopefully it's gonna work and not be a disaster. You sit down two hours later and analyse the match, and you're the happiest person alive. It's weird how it goes sometimes. (It) almost doesn't matter who or where you're playing. It's just a feeling I have inside of myself. Sometimes I feel very, very confident and I lose in straight sets."
Rohit Brijnath is in Melbourne, reporting from the Australian Open.
Read more: