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Davydenko Disappointed after Painful Exit

DUBAI — Nikolay Davydenko blamed his injured wrist for his painful exit from the Dubai Tennis Championships.

After surviving a tough three-setter in his first round match against Frenchman Florent Serra on Tuesday, the wrist problem stopped Davydenko from playing fluent tennis on Wednesday. And under an unforgiving sun, the Russian world number 6 found an inspired German, Michael Berrer (world number 56) too hot to handle in the second round match.

After losing the first set 3-6, Davydenko, winner of the season ending ATP Masters events in London, gave up.

“I was thinking about retiring before the match. But I when I was warming up, I felt okay. My wrist was fine then. I had no pain,” the Russian later 
told reporters.

“But in the match it was different. I needed to return faster. So I started feeling the pain again. That became too much for me, you know. So I didn’t want to take a risk and I retired.”

Davydenko admitted that it was disappointing for him to leave this tournament with an injury.

“Yeah, it’s disappointing for me because I didn’t recover fast enough. I was thinking I would try to recover as fast as possible. But I couldn’t handle the pain.

“So that was really disappointing. I don’t know how long it will take for me to recover. I don’t know if I will be able to play the Davis Cup tie in Moscow in March. We’ll see.”

Looking ahead

Davydenko says he is trying to forget about the biggest victory of his life — in the London Masters — as he is concentrating on the year ahead.

“London? I already forgot, you know what happened in London (laughs). That was last year. Now it’s 2010. It’s a new season, new life. Now you need to do new tournaments to win. It’s no different.

“It’s was past, it’s done. Now I need to do new results and play better and better. “But yeah, it was a good feeling, but what else? You know, we play 
every week.

“It’s not like Olympic the gold medallists, who win and then rest for four years. We need to play again every week. You’re just happy for one day after final, and the next day you need to prepare for the next tournament.”

The Russian says he will try to do well on a surface where he has never tasted success before.

“I play good on hard court, clay court indoors. But I want to play very well on grass. I think that’s what’s most important. If I do good result on grass, I think I would feel good.

“Normally I don’t move that well on grass. Maybe, I am little bit scared of getting injuries, you know.

“Maybe I need to get more time to practise on grass. I don’t know how many tournaments I will have before the Wimbledon as the schedule is too tight. After Roland Garros, I will hardly have time to prepare for Wimbledon.”