MOSCOW
Russia’s Nikolay Davydenko, top seed of the joint ATP and WTA Kremlin Cup tournament, crashed out of the event beaten by unheralded Uruguayan Pablo Cuevas in straight sets.
The 24-year-old Cuevas won 7-6 (8/6), 7-6 (7/5) in one hour 48 minutes to level his record with Davydenko, three-times a champion here (2004/06/07), at 1-1. It was not a good day for the Russian hopes as defending champion Mikhail Youzhny pulled out because he has not recovered after falling ill in Shanghai last week.
“I’m happy to win!” said Cuevas. “Davydenko is a very big player but today I was serving and returning very well and won deservedly.” Davydenko, 29, was trailing in the opening set after Cuevas broke his serve in the fifth game.
Davydenko broke back immediately to level but in the tiebreak that followed Cuevas was the more accurate of the two and won the first set in 54 minutes. Davydenko fought back, though, to force the first break of the second set in the ninth game.
But Cuevas, who is 71st in the ATP rankings, broke back immediately forcing another tiebreak, which he also won to progress to the quarter-finals. Fourth seed Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus barely broke sweat on his way to the quarter-finals beating journeyman Potito Starace of Italy in straight sets 6-4, 6-3 in one hour.
Baghdatis, seeking his second title of the season, broke Starace in the 10th game of the first set to give the 25-year-old Cypriot the set. In the second Baghdatis, who is 19th in the ATP world rankings, pressed home his psychological advantage by making an early break to go 3-0 up. Starace, 29, who won the men’s doubles here in 2008 with Ukraine’s Sergiy Stakhovsky, tried his best to claw back the deficit but Baghdatis kept his nerve to go through.
In the WTA section of the event Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, seeded second here, battled into the quarter-finals with a tough three-setter against Andrea Petkovic of Germany 6-4, 2-6, 6-1 and also a place in the season-ending event at Doha. The opponents both looked slightly rusty from the start producing a catalogue of errors and trading breaks throught the opening set.
