Davydenko to Meet Lopez in Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships Semifinals

Dubai, UAE, March 6th, 2008: Nikolay Davydenko ended Andy Murray’s run at the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships on Thursday, winning their quarter-final clash 7-5 6-4.

The Scot had won their last three meetings, and he had the opportunity to intimidate his opponent right at the start, holding break points in Davydenko’s first two service games. But after holding off that threat, the fifth seeded Russian was the one to break, crucially to lead 6-5. Murray held a break point in the next game, but Davydenko saved it with a wining backhand and went on to serve out the set.

Murray then broke to lead 3-0 in the second set, but the more aggressive Davydenko once more responded to the threat, breaking for 2-3 and then forcing a forehand error from Murray to break again for 4-3. The battle was over.

“I’m a bit disappointed purely because I had a lot of chances,” said Murray. “Early in the first set I had a couple of break points, and against someone like him, once he starts to get comfortable from the baseline, he’s really tough to beat.

“You could do with getting a good start and I did that in the second set, but I played a bad game to lose my serve. I wasn’t so disappointed the way I was hitting the ball. I was just disappointed I didn’t take the chances that I had because I had quite a few. The last few months when I’ve been facing break points I’ve served really well, and today I missed a lot of first serves and didn’t get a lot of cheap points on the break points. But in terms of the way I was hitting the ball it was better than yesterday.

“For me the most important one chance was the second game of the match. I think against a top player if you can stamp your authority early and get ahead, you’re obviously going to start to relax and they’re going to try and up their game, and especially here where the ball flies they can start to make mistakes.”

While the fifth seed survived, the fourth seed did not as David Ferrer was beaten 6-4 6-3 by fellow Spaniard and 2004 finalist Feliciano Lopez.

Although Ferrer took the lead in each set, breaking to lead 2-1 in the first and 1-0 in the second, Lopez recovered both times, breaking twice to take the first set and twice more in the second.

“I feel really good on the court here in Dubai,” said Lopez. “The conditions are really good for me and right now I’m so happy. I beat Berdych yesterday, David today, so I’m happy to be in the semi-finals again here in Dubai. It is definitely one of my favourite tournaments to play.”