TENNIS in DEPTH.

Roger Federer reached the ABN Amro World Tennis final with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory over Nikolay Davydenko on Saturday. Federer, playing in Rotterdam for the first time since capturing the 2005 title, will play for the championship Sunday against Juan Martin del Potro. The third-seeded Argentine downed second-seeded Tomas Berdych 6-3, 6-1 in the other semifinal. Del Potro, making his first Rotterdam appearance, will be seeking his first title since last May at Estoril. He has beaten Federer only twice in 10 matches and lost to the Swiss star in the Australian Open quarterfinals. Davydenko made a strong start, breaking Federer in the ninth game before holding his serve to claim the first set. The Russian forced another break in the third game of the second set but Federer broke back at 2-3 to take control. Federer still had to overcome three break points while trailing Davydenko 4-3 in the final set. “It’s good to see Davydenko back at this playing level,” Federer said. “Fortunately for me, he wasn’t good enough to knock me out.”

Del Potro broke his Czech opponent in the opening game before making another break at 5-3 to take the first set. In the one-sided second set, the Argentine took a 5-0 lead, then surrendered a game and completed the rout on his ninth ace of the match.

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Fourth seed Richard Gasquet booked his place in the quarter-finals of the Sud de France Open in Montpellier with a 6-3 6-4 win over Russian wild card Nikolay Davydenko. Gasquet needed one hour and 26 minutes to complete his win and reach the last eight where he will meet Germany’s Philipp Kohlschreiber, who beat Edouard Roger-Vasselin 6-4 7-5. There was further French success with second seed Gilles Simon overcoming Italy’s Flavio Cipolla 6-3 6-2, while wild card Guillaume Rufin was a surprise 7-6 (7-5) 6-3 winner over fifth seed Feliciano Lopez.

Top seed and home favourite Ivan Ljubicic crashed out of the Zagreb Indoors in Croatia after falling 6-4 6-4 in his second round match against Germany’s world number 105 Michael Berrer. Austrian qualifier Jurgen Melzer will play Berrer in the quarter-finals after defeating Italian fifth seed Andreas Seppi 6-2 6-3. Melzer, who needed just over an hour to progress, saved all but one of six break points against him.

Seventh seed Robin Haase beat Matthias Bachinger 7-6 (7/4) 3-6 6-3 while in first round action there were wins for Dudi Sela, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, Grega Zemlja and fourth seed Ivan Dodig.

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German wild card Cedrik-Marcel Stebe celebrated his first victory on the ATP tour when he beat sixth-seeded Nikolay Davydenko of Russia 3-6, 6-1, 6-4. The 20-year-old German who comes from near Stuttgart lost his only other tour-level matches, in the first round at Halle and Wimbledon. Both were on grass. Davydenko was twice a semifinalist in the clay-court tournament in Stuttgart.

Santiago Giraldo of Colombia upset second-seeded Jurgen Melzer of Austria 6-4, 7-5 on Tuesday to advance to the second round of the Mercedes Cup. Giraldo beat Melzer for the first time in three attempts. The Colombian reached the final in Santiago in February, also on clay.

Third-seeded Mikhail Youzhny of Russia, who captured his first career title in Stuttgart in 2002, eased past Germany’s Philipp Petzschner 6-3, 6-3. Jeremy Chardy of France, who won the tournament in 2009, beat Germany’s Tobias Kamke 7-6 (1), 6-1. Two Spaniards, Juan Carlos Ferrero and Pablo Andujar, also advanced, along with Lukasz Kubot of Poland, Fabio Fognini of Italy and Pavol Cervenak of Slovakia.

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Juan Martin Del Potro claimed his ninth ATP Tour title this afternoon with a straight-sets victory over second seed Fernando Verdasco in the Estoril Open final. The eighth seed, playing in his first claycourt event of the year, needed just 76 minutes to see off his Spanish opponent 6-2 6-2 at the Estadio Nacional. There were three straight breaks of serve before the Argentinian took control by holding his serve to establish a 3-1 lead en route to clinching the first set, dropping just six points on serve throughout. Verdasco’s struggles on serve continued in the second set, Del Potro breaking in the first game and capitalising on a number of groundstroke errors to build a 5-2 lead before securing victory in a 14-point service game with a forehand winner. Del Potro dropped just one set all week in Portugal, and has now won 23 of his last 26 matches as he continues his climb up the world rankings following wrist surgery last year. Verdasco admitted he had come up against a man in form today.

Russian Nikolay Davydenko won the BMW Open title in Munich by beating Germany’s Florian Meyer in three sets. Davydenko won the first set 6-3 but lost the next by the same scoreline. But the 29-year-old was in total charge of the decider which he won to wrap up a 6-3 3-6 6-1 victory in an hour and 49 minutes. Davydenko, once as high as three in the world but now ranked 40th, made it 21 career titles with his first win since he took the title in Doha last year.

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Roger Federer saw off the challenge of defending champion Nikolay Davydenko to win the Qatar ExxonMobil Open in Doha. The world number two clinched a 6-3 6-4 victory in one hour 19 minutes. Davydenko, the fourth seed, had accounted for world number one Rafael Nadal in the semi-finals, but the Russian never looked in contention against Federer. The Swiss second seed did not face a single break point and converted two of the eight he had, seven of those chances coming in the opening set.

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Roger Federer will meet defending champion Nikolay Davydenko in the final of the Qatar ExxonMobil Open in Doha after the pair won their respective semi-finals. Federer, the number two seed, beat third seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in straight sets, while Davydenko toppled world number one Rafael Nadal, also in straight sets. A high-quality contest saw Federer prevail 6-3 7-6 (7/2) against the Frenchman. “Obviously I’m very excited; it’s always nice to start off the year with a final,” Federer said on www.atpworldtour.com.

“I think Nikolay actually has a very good record in finals, and that makes him tough to play in a final. I feel well and I’ll definitely have a chance with all my experience and the level I’m playing at right now.”

In a repeat of last year’s final, the consistent Davydenko saw off Nadal 6-3 6-2, with the visibly tired Spaniard still facing a doubles match later in the day.

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Qualifier Zarina Diyas beat top-seeded Jelena Jankovic 6-1, 6-2 Thursday in the second round of the Kremlin Cup. The 268th-ranked Diyas, who celebrated her 17th birthday on Monday, led 5-0 in the first set when Jankovic called for a doctor and had her blood pressure checked.  Jankovic, who has qualified for next week’s WTA championships, managed to break back early in the second set but Diyas then broke the Serb two times. In the quarterfinals, Diyas will face sixth-seeded Maria Kirilenko of Russia, who routed Kateryna Bondarenko of Ukraine 6-0, 6-0.

Home favourite Nikolay Davydenko was the major casualty in Wednesday’s Kremlin Cup action in Moscow as he lost to qualifier Pablo Cuevas. Davydenko, seeded first in the Russian capital and a three-time winner of the event, lost 7-6 (8/6) 7-6 (7/5) in one hour and 48 minutes to the Uruguayan, ranked 47th in the world, who secured his first-ever ATP Tour win against a top 20 player. It was a much more straightforward day for fourth seed Marcos Baghdatis as the Cypriot stormed past Italy’s Potito Starace 6-4 6-3 in 62 minutes and for Radek Stepanek as the Czech fifth seed disposed of Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Kukushkin 6-3 6-2. Defending champion Mikhail Youzhny was forced to pull out of the event due to a viral infection.

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Novak Djokovic was handed an easy passage through to the quarter-finals of the China Open when opponent Mardy Fish pulled out with an ankle injury. The US Open finalist will now face Frenchman Gilles Simon, who came through a three-hour marathon to beat Michael Berrer 6-7 (6/8) 6-4 7-6 (7/4), in the last eight.

Also through is fourth seed Nikolay Davydenko, who racked up his 400th professional win by coming from a break down in the first set to defeat Marin Cilic 7-5 7-5. The Russian, who has struggled with a wrist injury this season, said: “It was a very good match for me. My baseline play showed good control and I played fast.” Davydenko next faces giant American John Isner after his 7-6 (7/3) 3-6 6-3 win in a big-serving encounter against Philipp Kohlschreiber.

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