The misery continued for Nikolay Davydenko in Paris today, as he appeared to suffer from some sort of mental block in a straight sets defeat to Marcos Baghdatis.
The world number four's service action totally collapsed, with many serves coming off the frame and others hitting the bottom of the net or landing several feet long and wide of the service line; some landed nearer the baseline than the service line.
At one point in the second set, the umpire Cedric Maurier starting giving advice to Davydenko and telling him to serve like he would! Totally bizarre and this all boils down to the precedent set last week in St Petersburg, when Davydenko was fined for not trying.
In all my years of watching tennis, I have never seen an umpire tell a player how to serve, let alone have the nerve to suggest that the world number four should forget his own game and serve like the umpire does down at the Paris municipal courts, but it happened today during several changeovers and Davydenko appeared close to tears for the second consecutive tournament.
Baghdatis eventually put Davydenko out of his misery 6-2, 6-2 and the unforced error stats for Davydenko make shocking reading for the defending champion. Ten double faults, broken five times and just one point won on second serve in the match.
The last time I can recall a mental aberration on serve of this magnitude was a few years back when Guillermo Coria lost the plot and was completely unable to make a serve. It became so bad that Coria went into semi retirement, before coincidentally making a comeback last week.
The treatment of Davydenko by the umpires, both this week and last could be interpreted a number of ways and will contribute to a number of conspiracy theories. Perhaps the ATP findings into the match fixing allegations are starting to leak out and there is a bit of a witch hunt developing against Davydenko? Maybe all the attention and suspicion has adversely affected the Russian to the point where he is now unable to play? How about Davydenko is about to be banned from the tour and the officials feel they have carte blanche to say what they like?
What we do know is that Nikolay Davydenko's career currently hangs in the balance.
Thursday, 1 November 2007
Tuesday, 30 October 2007
Davydenko fined and Betfair's findings
Further to my previous entry regarding Mr Nikolay Davydenko suffering the indignity of being warned by umpire Jean-Philippe Dercq in his match with Cilic, the footnote to the story is that the ATP fined everyone's favourite Russian £1000 for 'lack of best effort'.
I personally had never heard of this rule until last week and find it rather odd that the ATP would choose to single out Davydenko in this manner, unless it is their way of providing a subtle nudge to the Russian in the manner of "we're on to you, pal" in the hope that they (the ATP) are seen to be doing something to eradicate match-fixing.
Talking of match-fixing - again - and yet another ATP pro has admitted being approached to throw a match. This time it's 2001 Aussie Open runner-up Arnaud Clement, although he wouldn't say when or by whom he was approached.
It appears that the French Tennis Federation (FFT) are making all the right noises about taking match fixing seriously, to the extent that they claim to be working with the police and monitoring the matches at this week's Paris Masters for any signs of corruption.
Had such measures been installed at last week's St Petersburg Open, the powers that be would surely have concluded that Dmitry Tursunov's match with Boris Pashanski was suspicious to say the least.
A number of irate punters complained to Betfair about questionable betting patterns in this match - namely Tursunov being a five to one ON favourite when a set and a break down and later trading at 33 to 1 ON when the scores were level at 3-3 in the same set.
Betfair released a statement to the Associated Press which effectively claimed that the market had become "a little bit skewed" by one specific high volume punter, who is apparently a net loser (no pun intended) on tennis betting and had continued to back Tursunov at the aforementioned odds regardless of the score.
It's little wonder that this mystery gambler is a net loser if he thinks that 33 to 1 on is a good price for an inconsistent and unpredictable player like Tursunov, who was a set down and receiving an injury time out.
It will be interesting to see if the ATP's outcome of the Davydenko v Vassallo Arguello match concludes that the market "became a little bit skewed" by a passionate Vassallo Arguello fan who backed his 87th ranked favourite to victory over the world number four to the tune of around £2.5 million.
I personally had never heard of this rule until last week and find it rather odd that the ATP would choose to single out Davydenko in this manner, unless it is their way of providing a subtle nudge to the Russian in the manner of "we're on to you, pal" in the hope that they (the ATP) are seen to be doing something to eradicate match-fixing.
Talking of match-fixing - again - and yet another ATP pro has admitted being approached to throw a match. This time it's 2001 Aussie Open runner-up Arnaud Clement, although he wouldn't say when or by whom he was approached.
It appears that the French Tennis Federation (FFT) are making all the right noises about taking match fixing seriously, to the extent that they claim to be working with the police and monitoring the matches at this week's Paris Masters for any signs of corruption.
Had such measures been installed at last week's St Petersburg Open, the powers that be would surely have concluded that Dmitry Tursunov's match with Boris Pashanski was suspicious to say the least.
A number of irate punters complained to Betfair about questionable betting patterns in this match - namely Tursunov being a five to one ON favourite when a set and a break down and later trading at 33 to 1 ON when the scores were level at 3-3 in the same set.
Betfair released a statement to the Associated Press which effectively claimed that the market had become "a little bit skewed" by one specific high volume punter, who is apparently a net loser (no pun intended) on tennis betting and had continued to back Tursunov at the aforementioned odds regardless of the score.
It's little wonder that this mystery gambler is a net loser if he thinks that 33 to 1 on is a good price for an inconsistent and unpredictable player like Tursunov, who was a set down and receiving an injury time out.
It will be interesting to see if the ATP's outcome of the Davydenko v Vassallo Arguello match concludes that the market "became a little bit skewed" by a passionate Vassallo Arguello fan who backed his 87th ranked favourite to victory over the world number four to the tune of around £2.5 million.
Friday, 26 October 2007
Davydenko in the spotlight again
Very much akin to Cristiano Ronaldo, Robert Pires et al becoming known as exponents of 'simulation' in football, so it has finally come to pass that Nikolay Davydenko is now being viewed suspiciously by umpires as well as tennis fans.
After hitting the headlines recently for his part in the match fixing allegations in the Sopot event in Poland, it has now been reported that Davydenko was yesterday accused of 'not trying' by the umpire in the Russian's second round encounter with Marin Cilic in St Petersburg.
The BBC report that match umpire Jean-Philippe Dercq warned Davydenko after the world number four had double faulted in the third set to lose a game in a set that he eventually lost 6-1 and with it the match, despite strolling through the opener by the same margin.
Davydenko is quoted as saying "I double-faulted to lose a game in the third set and he gave me a warning saying I was trying to lose on purpose. I was simply shocked to hear him say that. This is just outrageous. How does he know what I was trying to do? I was so upset with the whole thing I started crying."
The phrase "crocodile tears" comes immediately to mind for a man whose extremely questionable record in suspicious matches is under investigation by the ATP and who after winning the first set of yesterday's match, recorded 10 double faults in the remaining two. The betting exchange Betfair no longer offer Davydenko matches to gamble on, which suggests that their evidence in the Sopot incident may be damning.
I watched the now infamous Davydenko v Vassallo Arguello encounter on live stream and am completely convinced beyond the slightest doubt that the match was fixed, along with many others, including several involving both Vassallo Arguello and Davydenko.
The US Open semi-finalist's excuse yesterday was that, "I started feeling tired. My legs were just dead by the third set. Maybe my problems are psychological, maybe it's in my head."
I have my own views as to where his problems lie and hopefully the evidence will come to light sooner rather than later, in order to rid the sport of matches such as the one in Sopot, which sadly is much more common that is generally thought.
Everyone who is involved with tennis knows that it happens, but do the ATP care enough or possess the evidence to be able to stamp it out? The answer apparently is negative to both.
After hitting the headlines recently for his part in the match fixing allegations in the Sopot event in Poland, it has now been reported that Davydenko was yesterday accused of 'not trying' by the umpire in the Russian's second round encounter with Marin Cilic in St Petersburg.
The BBC report that match umpire Jean-Philippe Dercq warned Davydenko after the world number four had double faulted in the third set to lose a game in a set that he eventually lost 6-1 and with it the match, despite strolling through the opener by the same margin.
Davydenko is quoted as saying "I double-faulted to lose a game in the third set and he gave me a warning saying I was trying to lose on purpose. I was simply shocked to hear him say that. This is just outrageous. How does he know what I was trying to do? I was so upset with the whole thing I started crying."
The phrase "crocodile tears" comes immediately to mind for a man whose extremely questionable record in suspicious matches is under investigation by the ATP and who after winning the first set of yesterday's match, recorded 10 double faults in the remaining two. The betting exchange Betfair no longer offer Davydenko matches to gamble on, which suggests that their evidence in the Sopot incident may be damning.
I watched the now infamous Davydenko v Vassallo Arguello encounter on live stream and am completely convinced beyond the slightest doubt that the match was fixed, along with many others, including several involving both Vassallo Arguello and Davydenko.
The US Open semi-finalist's excuse yesterday was that, "I started feeling tired. My legs were just dead by the third set. Maybe my problems are psychological, maybe it's in my head."
I have my own views as to where his problems lie and hopefully the evidence will come to light sooner rather than later, in order to rid the sport of matches such as the one in Sopot, which sadly is much more common that is generally thought.
Everyone who is involved with tennis knows that it happens, but do the ATP care enough or possess the evidence to be able to stamp it out? The answer apparently is negative to both.
Wednesday, 24 October 2007
Madrid wrap & the race continues
We all knew it was there, it just looked increasingly unlikely that David Nalbandian's ability would ever resurface, as he slid down the rankings and appeared to have lost interest in reclaiming his top ten position.
In Madrid last week however, Nalbandian pulled off the unlikeliest of back-to-back victories, in defeating Nadal, Djokovic and Federer and in so doing achieved a feat not witnessed since the days when Boris Becker patrolled the courts; that of beating the top three in the world rankings consecutively.
Nalbandian's resurgence from a desperately poor year by his standards can only be good for the men's game and if he can capitalise on his week's triumph, he would be in with an opportunity of regaining the heights of a top five place in the rankings and become a serious challenger to the current top three once more.
Talking of rankings, this week sees the race to Shanghai continue in Lyon, St Petersburg and Basel and early casualties this week were Tommy Haas, who withdrew from Lyon and David Ferrer, whose Basel defeat by Agustin Calleri was his second consecutive first round loss.
Mathematically, anyone down as low as Ivo Karlovic at 25 in the race could still qualify for Shanghai, with places six to eight still available and Andy Murray made a positive start to his week's work by dismissing Belorussian giant Max Mirnyi in straight sets on Tuesday.
Roger Federer can claim the end of year number one ranking by retaining his Basel trophy on Sunday and got off to a shaky start yesterday, dropping a set to German left hander Michael Berrer, before sneaking through in three to set up a match with either Del Potro or Russell in round two.
In Madrid last week however, Nalbandian pulled off the unlikeliest of back-to-back victories, in defeating Nadal, Djokovic and Federer and in so doing achieved a feat not witnessed since the days when Boris Becker patrolled the courts; that of beating the top three in the world rankings consecutively.
Nalbandian's resurgence from a desperately poor year by his standards can only be good for the men's game and if he can capitalise on his week's triumph, he would be in with an opportunity of regaining the heights of a top five place in the rankings and become a serious challenger to the current top three once more.
Talking of rankings, this week sees the race to Shanghai continue in Lyon, St Petersburg and Basel and early casualties this week were Tommy Haas, who withdrew from Lyon and David Ferrer, whose Basel defeat by Agustin Calleri was his second consecutive first round loss.
Mathematically, anyone down as low as Ivo Karlovic at 25 in the race could still qualify for Shanghai, with places six to eight still available and Andy Murray made a positive start to his week's work by dismissing Belorussian giant Max Mirnyi in straight sets on Tuesday.
Roger Federer can claim the end of year number one ranking by retaining his Basel trophy on Sunday and got off to a shaky start yesterday, dropping a set to German left hander Michael Berrer, before sneaking through in three to set up a match with either Del Potro or Russell in round two.
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