German Michael Berrer put an end to Nikolay Davydenko’s Barclays Championships participation as the injured Russian fourth seed quit with an existing wrist injury to hand over a 6-3 victory into the quarterfinals.
Davydenko had never looked like making a run this week in the emirate after falling on the wrist during a Rotterdam semifinal earlier this month. He had not even been sure of playing the event.
Davydenko managed a three-set fightback in his opener on Tuesday to overcome Florent Serra but was unable to make a further impression when he took on number 56 Berrer, whom he had beaten on two previous occasions. “Yesterday after the match, I had pain,” said the fourth seed, winner of the year-end tournament in London last November. “But I thought maybe I’d recover.
“I had less for the warm-up today, but I was even thinking to retire before the match. But I felt OK and the wrist was holding up.” But the Russian who is now in doubt for next week’s Davis Cup tie in Moscow against India, said that his fitness luck ran out once the battle began on court.
It took 45 minutes for Davydenko to finally give the match away.
“I needed to return faster and play fast and I started to have more pain. It was too much for me, it was risky and it was better to retire,” he said.
“It’s disappointing for me because I didn’t recover fast enough.
But I now have a few days to try and get rid of the pain so I can play again.” Davydenko said he could not determine his Davis Cup availability just yet.
“I don’t know sure if I can go to Moscow for Davis Cup.” Croatian Marin Cilic, seeded sixth, continued his smooth passage, reaching the last eight in less than 90 minutes over Austrian Stefan Koubek 6-2, 7-6 (8-6).
Jurgen Melzer of Austria got past Tommy Robredo 6-3, 7-5 to reach a third quarterfinal in four 2010 events.
