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Barclays ATP World Tour Finals: Davydenko is champ.

An unlikely champion, Nikolay Davydenko, emerged yesterday at the end-of-year finals. He beat the Argentine Del Potro 6-3, 6-4 in an hour and twenty three minutes with some pinpoint hitting to go one better than his runner-up finish last year and pocket almost £1 million. Amidst the big personalities of the tour, the Russian tends to go by unnoticed - “he keeps himself to himself” seemed to be the most that anyone could offer about him. A triumph of substance over style, one might say.

Davydenko had dispatched Roger Federer in the semi-finals on Saturday, winning a deciding set 7-5, after having lived dangerously at 0-30 when 4-5 down. It was a tenacious effort because Federer has made a habit of dropping the first set and coming back strongly - he was heavy odds-on to prevail. The overriding impression that I got from this match was that Federer didn’t give his opponent enough respect and simply thought he had to turn up to win – a winning 12-0 head-to-head perhaps led him into complacency. Instead of seeking out the lines with his winners, he lazily went for ‘percentage’ area shots, which Davydenko, very reminiscent of Lleyton Hewitt in his prime, was too quick for, always making the world number one play one more stroke. It wasn’t an entirely defensive display however, as, despite his whippet-thin physique, he packs a bit more into his groundstrokes than Hewitt ever did, and he came up with some decisive winners.

His opponent in the final was Juan Martin Del Potro, who had had a titanic struggle with Robin Söderling in the Saturday evening semi-final, which he won 6-7(1-7), 6-3, 7-6(7-3). Despite the closeness of the scoreline, it was always Del Potro’s match to win or lose, as he possesses that extra shot-making ability. His opponents must dread seeing the big man plant his feet inside the baseline to wind up for those big forehands.

The final itself was relatively straightforward for Davydenko, whose unerring accuracy proved too much for a sluggish Del Potro, who apparently only got to bed at 3 am after his semi-final. Breaks in the fourth game of the first and the ninth game of the second set were sufficient.

Much has been said of the scheduling, that it is disadvantageous on the player playing in the evening / night match to have to come out again on the following day. This is largely bunkum – if they were playing the best of five sets on a sapping surface then fair enough, but, finely honed athletes that they are, the workload is minimal. In Del Potro’s case it was more of a cumulative effect of (a) hardly having played in the run-up to the tournament due to injury and (b) all of his matches unusually having gone the distance.

The event itself has been successfully staged - just as well, as the O2 Arena will be hosting the finals for the next four years. There is some room for improvement but, having seen the package first hand, I felt that the basic rock ‘n’ roll approach (starting with the gladiatorial Clash intro and continued with snatches of the likes of The Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen at the turnarounds) worked well. The sponsors will probably be hoping for a more congruent winner next year! 

Barclays ATP World Tour Finals: Rockin' Robin.

After the round-robin stage of the prestigious end-of-year bat ‘n' ball extravaganza, the semi-finalists have been decided. Roger Federer will play Nikolay Davydenko and Juan Martin Del Potro will play Robin Söderling for a place in Sunday’s final.

A far cry from the sedate all-whites of SW19, the action in the Greenwich O2 Arena has been an oxymoronic corporate rock ’n' roll affair. The combatants enter the arena to the sound of The Clash’s punk classic “London calling” and do battle on a Barclays Bank blue piste.

Group A (Federer, Murray, Del Potro, Verdasco)

Andy Murray looked in decent nick in his opener against Del Potro. His array of spins and squash shots managed to tame the straight hitting of the Argentine over three sets.

The crucial match was Murray vs. Federer. It was like watching a talented up and coming musician exhibiting his skills in the guitar shop, only for Jimi Hendrix to walk in and steal the show. Seemingly needing a set to get calibrated (he had also dropped the opening set in his opening win against Verdasco), Federer was simply majestic in sets two and three – I can’t recall seeing any tennis better than this. When he has his muse, the racquet is a natural extension of his body and anything feels possible; one shot in particular, he has made his own - where the ball is taken between the half-volley and the groundstroke and caressed for winners from all positions. Earlier, Del Potro had seen off a spirited Fernando Verdasco in a final-set tie-break, giving himself a chance of qualifying.

In the third round of matches, Murray broadly did what he had to do – beat Verdasco (who, despite losing all three of his games, was certainly not the whipping boy most expected him to be) but crucially, not in straight sets, leaving him vulnerable in the event of a close Del Potro victory over Federer.  This match was strangely similar to the US Open final in tenor, it was almost as though it had been transposed from New York to London - Del Potro’s power ultimately holding sway over Federer’s guile. Indeed, it really should have been a straight sets victory for Del Potro but he faltered in the second set tie-break, netting a relatively easy shot at 5-4 to the good. A relieved Federer (he would have exited at this stage) seemed to be just going through the motions in the third set, which Del Potro took 6-3, the only scoreline which could send Murray out. Because all three players were tied in the number of matches won and the percentage of sets won, it came down to the percentage of games won. Federer was clear (judging from his reaction at the end, he seemed to have done the math beforehand) and Del Potro had won one more game than Murray with the same number lost. Harsh? A tad but perhaps if he had read the small print, Murray would have put a bit more in somewhere. Not a disaster for Murray in the grand scheme of things but does he really need five-six-seven(?) people geeing him up – that’s four-five-six bods too many in my book.

Group B (Nadal, Djokovic, Davydenko, Soderling)

After straight sets victories over the world numbers two and three, Nadal and Djokovic, the Swede Robin Söderling was the first man to qualify for the semis. The surprise was not the fact that he won the matches but the ease with which he did so, especially against the Serb.

Söderling has the understated disposition of a doubles player, from his irony-free ball toss onwards, his game is all about good honest powerful hitting and it was too much for Nadal and Djokovic, who seemed to be running on empty throughout the tournament.

This correspondent got to see Nadal vs. Davydenko in the second round of matches, which proved to be one-way traffic. Both players needed the victory after first round defeats. The Spaniard had huge support from the crowd but he was all brawn and no brain; the hard courts don’t suit Nadal’s attritional top-spin game and an in-form Davydenko was way too skillful, dominating the play and easily winning in straight sets.

In the third round of matches, an off-colour Djoko saw off an even offer-colour Rafa to give himself a chance of qualifying. But it wasn’t to be, as Davydenko rose to the occasion to beat Söderling in three sets. By offering some serious money to win each match and, further, to go through the whole tournament undefeated, the circumstance of a player not giving it his all doesn’t really obtain, so it was full credit to the Russian to beat the man of the moment.

For all Söderling’s form, it is hard to look beyond a Federer vs. Del Potro final.  

Barclays ATP World Tour Finals preview.

The top eight players in men’s tennis, as reckoned by the ATP rankings, will be slugging it out for the ATP World Tour title this week at London’s O2 arena. This annual event doesn’t quite have the cachet of a Grand Slam victory but it is certainly a glamour occasion with a past champions Hall of Fame that has tended to accurately reflect the contemporary power in the game.

The event has an initial round-robin format with two groups of four; the winner of each group plays the runner-up in the other group in the semi-finals. All matches are the best of three sets with final set tie-breaks.

So, who are the combatants, what shape are they in, what is their history in the event and what do the head-to-heads look like?

Video technology has got to come

The unfortunate events in the France-Ireland World Cup Qualifier have highlighted yet again the need for football’s governing body to reconsider the use of video technology on key decisions. No one can hold it against the referee that he didn’t see Thierry Henry’s handball – his view was blocked. One can question why the linesman didn’t see it – maybe there was someone in the way, and, after all, it happened very quickly and he was a long way away. Everyone can get on their soap box and criticise Henry for doing it – but which of the professionals on the pitch would not have done the same thing in the same situation?

For me, the point is not so much that the referee has made an error. That will always happen. The point is that all TV viewers in the world were made aware of the mistake within 10 seconds – and the poor old ref is left there with his authority thoroughly undermined. Surely it is the sport of football and the fans that pay to get into the stadium that should benefit from such technology, rather than merely those sat at home? So many commercial aspects of football have hit the 21st century leading other sports that it’s a glaringly obvious contradiction that soccer lags behind on something as fundamental as this. One incidental bonus: it would be nice to shut up the likes of Alex Ferguson and others every (rare) time a decision goes against them.

One merely has to look at rugby, cricket and tennis as sports which have taken advantage of video replays – to see how quickly the change has been accepted, and how much it has diffused potential tensions on the pitch. While I do recall the “entertainment” value of a John McEnroe tantrum on the court when a ball was wrongly given “out”, this was a miniscule element relative to the entertainment he provided by playing such fantastic tennis – which was the main reason I always looked forward to watching him play.

The obvious question for video evidence in football is: which decisions should be left to the referee, and on which issues should he be allowed to consult the “5th referee”? In the knowledge that this will probably trigger a few thoughts, here are my views on what should be introduced for the World Cup:

Formula 1: auf wiedersehen, Brawn GP

So, it’s goodbye Brawn GP, hello Mercedes GP. “Mercedes-Benz will enter the Formula 1 World Championship with its own team, beginning with the 2010 season”, said yesterday’s statement announcing the takeover of Brawn, championship winners in 2009 in their debut F1 season. Reports confirmed that the team would be re-branded, with the Mercedes statement even accompanied by an image of what is presumably a prospective new silver livery.

Admirers of the Brawn team are entitled to feel a touch let down. It’s a bit like waking up to find your football club is moving to a different town – things can never really be the same. It’s worth recalling what Brawn GP brought to Formula 1. Emerging from the remnants of the former Honda team, Brawn’s astute implementation of the new F1 regulations introduced for 2009 produced a car that thoroughly shook up the pack. And, right down to the minimalist white-and-yellow colour-scheme, they did it with a style and – to take a shamelessly romanticised view – a privateer spirit that was somehow evocative of a bygone era. All of which was accentuated by the odd ‘retro’ look of the 2009 cars and the fact that, in Jenson Button – the Man Who Would Be World Champion – Brawn had a driver with a dash of old-fashioned Gentleman Racer about him.

The fact that an Abu Dhabi investment company is involved in the takeover means the new set-up has a much more ‘corporate’ look about it. Yet Mercedes is a name of great tradition – Fangio taking the driver’s title for them way back in 1955. And this is perhaps the consolation for Brawn followers: that the latest incarnation of the Mercedes Silver Arrow may build on what Brawn achieved by enabling the team to stay in contention in years to come with powers like Ferrari and McLaren (whose 15-year partnership with Mercedes has meanwhile been re-assessed) and any other would-be title challengers. Otherwise, there was always the risk that Brawn would fade away to also-ran status in the F1 mid-field, unable to live up to their one great season in the limelight. Sustained success for Mercedes racing under its own name would represent a fundamental shift in the F1 landscape – and that would be Brawn GP’s enduring legacy.