Sublime Davydenko claims first Masters title

PARIS—Nikolay Davydenko has reached a career-high three in the world after claiming his first Masters title here with a 6-1, 6-2, 6-2 victory over Dominik Hrbaty.
Despite playing in his first Masters final Sunday, Russian Davydenko was imperious throughout, dominating his Slovakian opponent. The first two sets were more of a massacre than a tennis match.
With the Masters Cup in Shanghai and the Davis Cup final in Msocow to come before Davydenko can take a well-earned rest, he is coming into form at just the right time.
Only Roger Federer has won more matches this year than Davydenko who took his haul to five titles since the start of the season and 10 in total.
Seeded fourth he was the highest ranked player in the field following the withdrawals of Federer, Rafael Nadal, David Nalbandian and Andy Roddick.
The first set lasted only 21 minutes with Hrbaty unable to find anything like his usual steady play. He won only eight points and contributed almost half of Davydenko’s 26 points with unforced errors.
The second set started in much the same vein with the Russian quickly racking up a 4-0 lead having won 10 of the opening 11 games.
Hrbaty, playing in his first final this year, finally started to make a fist of it, on his own serve at least, and managed to force Davydenko to serve out the set.
The players had been on court for less than an hour. The Paris crowd, who a week earlier had probably been dreaming about watching a Federer-Nadal final, willed Hrbaty to find his range and he obliged, saving three break points in the third game to stay in the hunt.
But that was to be the last game the world number 27 would win. After gifting the Russian a break in the fifth game with two woeful unforced errors that dropped tamely into the net, he failed to convert on several break points in the next and then dropped serve for the sixth time before slumping to defeat in just 1hr 38min.
He took his record against Hrbaty to 4-1 with all his victories coming on hard courts.—Agencies