Novak Djokovic and Nikolay Davydenko. Photo via d.yimg.com

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In a tournament that has had one in six matches end in retirement due to injury, the fans in Shanghai finally got to see a high-quality match played to the end in Saturday's first semifinal.

Nikolay Davydenko outlasted second-seed Novak Djokovic 4-6, 6-4, 7-6(1) in an epic battle that lasted just over three hours.  Both played extremely well from start to finish, with strong serving allowing for only one break by each over the entire match.  Both Djokovic and Davydenko were seeing the ball extremely well, smacking the ball at full blast and hitting line after line, leaving commentator Robby Koenig to call what he saw "video game calibre tennis."

But by the end Davydenko was more frequently able to find the balance of aggressiveness and consistency on the big points, winning the third tiebreak with relative ease, 7-1.

Keeping with the pattern of at least one injury retirement each round, Feliciano Lopez dropped nine straight games before retiring against compatriot Rafael Nadal, who was leading 6-1, 3-0 when Lopez finally threw in the towel.

While the final initially looks like a mismatch on paper, Davydenko did crush Nadal in their only previous meeting in a final, beating him 6-4, 6-2 in the finals of the Miami Masters in 2008, a blindsiding upset that was nowhere near as close as the straight sets score lets on.  Nadal has certainly not looked his sharpest in this event, and if Davydenko has enough gas in the tank it could well be another blitzing win for the Russian.

But I'm betting Nadal gets it done in three.  That is, of course, provided the injury bug is finally out of bites.

via d.yimg.com

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Just days after Rafael Nadal and Andy Roddick spoke out against the risk of injuries from the long season, the injuries rained down on Shanghai.

Roddick, Juan Martin del Potro, Gael Monfils, Tommy Haas Jose Acasuso, and Mischa Zverev have all dropped out of Shanghai with injury already this week, and the tournament is less than half done.

So what should be done?

A quick fix would seem to me to be to move the Asian swing into the part of the season between the Australian Open and Indian Wells, where the Tokyo women's tournament used to be.  Have them be indoors (or outdoors if possible in warmer climes like Guangzhou, Bangkok, and Kuala Lumpur).  It would make the shift to Dubai easier, and would keep players in one hemisphere for a while.  San Jose and Memphis could stay the week before Indian Wells as warm-ups for that.

I would then have the European indoor season start immediately after the US Open, which works perfectly as a lead in to the Tour Finals now that they're in London.  Move Rotterdam and Marseille into the fall too, for good measure.

It should be a fairly easy, doable solution. 

Which of course means it won't happen.

John Isner, via d.yimg.com

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In what could have been an epic battle of youth and power vs. age and speed, Lleyton Hewitt dismantled John Isner, 6-2, 6-4, in a match that was nowhere near as close as the score would indicate.

Isner is now at a ranking of #42, just shy of the career-high #38 he reached in September.  Defending few points from the early part of the season, it's likely he'll be getting seeded at Grand Slams for the first time by Wimbledon next year, if not sooner. 

But in Shanghai, the first Masters event outside the US he ever received a direct entry into, he looked to have taken a step back.  The strong returning, consistency and patience that helped get him to the second week of the US Open were nowhere to be found in this match, and he looked like the completely one dimensional player he was for the earlier parts of his career.

Hewitt, for his part, continues to look great.  He continues to be able to get ball after ball back in play against big hitters like Isner, keeping the rallies going until an eventual error comes off his opponent's racquet.

Nine of Hewitt's last twelve losses have come to opponents inside the top ten, which shows that he isn't prone to having untimely exits at tournaments the way so many in the 8-30 echelon of the ranks can be.  With his experience and constant effort, Hewitt should be able to find his way into the top twenty and perhaps even higher by the time the American spring hard court swing ends.

In other news, I'm fairly sure the entire crowd of the Qizhong Arena (which has a maximum capacity of 15,000) could have fit inside my living room.  I understand why big tournaments are put in countries with big money smaller tennis traditions, but this was embarrassingly empty for a Masters event.  And with neither Federer nor Andy Murray not in the draw, it's possible the crowds won't get much better.