2 down, 10 wins to go.
After losing his first twelve matches against Roger Federer, Nikolay Davydenko is now on a bona fide hot streak against the World #1, defeating him again in the semi-finals of Doha, Qatar.
In the January/February issue of Tennis Magazine, writer Tom Perrotta predicts that 2010 will make it clear that the best days of the Federer/Nadal rivalry are behind us, and in his online predictions he goes so far as to say that Fed will not claim a major this seaon (I don't agree with that - I think Federer is still more than a 2:1 favorite at Wimbledon against anyone except a fully in form Nadal).
But this loss does not bode well for Federer's desire to win some of the "smaller" tournaments on the tour in 2010. It is understandable that Federer will lose ground to the young guns, but Davydenko is Federer's contemporary on the tour - and if Fed can't maintain the mental and physical edge over his contemporaries, then he may find himself behind the rest of the pack must sooner than expected.
