A Serve of Validation (a little disappointment on the side)

It is very easy, as a Federer fan, to become greedy. We all felt very hard done by last year when Roger only managed to capture one Slam out of three finals and a semi. That was, by his standards, a poor year. And while he qualified for the year ending championships easily, he went out in the round robin stage. We were all in agonies... while fans of another player with the same year would be in paroxysms of joy.

This is why I'm not particularly upset by Federer's loss to Davydenko at the year ending championships. He's won the French and Wimbledon this year. He's never lost to Kolya before, but if he had to take a loss, this isn't necessarily a bad time. Sure, it's a little disappointing, but he's got the year end #1 all wrapped up. He's improved on last year. He's won this tournament four times before. He scored a very psychologically important win over Andy Murray. And he deserves to go home with his girls and put his feet up.

And Davydenko really, really deserves to win something.

I don't think will give Kolya some massive burst of confidence over Roger or anything. Looking at their reactions afterwards, I think they're both pretty realistic about the significance of this in the long run - ie. not very. It was a tight match all the way down to the wire, and for once, Kolya got lucky. And while I obviously still would have preferred a Federer victory, I can't help but feel a little bit happy for Kolya. He's such a good player but he gets forgotten about all the time, and he really deserves a big title.

To win said title, he'll have to topple the winner of Soderling and del Potro, who are engaged in a bit of a titanic struggle on this one. I have a slight hunch that the Yoker might be the one to come out of this with the win, and I am totally fine with that. If we see a Soderling/Davydenko final, I genuinely won't mind which guy wins. They both deserve a big win.


Today's Results

Barclays ATP World Tour Championships (London)

Nikolay Davydenko def. Robin Soderling, 7-6 (7-4) 4-6 6-3
Nikolay Davydenko def. Roger Federer, 6-2 4-6 7-5