Davydenko Shouldn’t Be Punished on the Court

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

It pains me to come to the defense of Nikolay Davydenko. The men’s tour continues to investigate whether the 26-year-old Russian, the no. 4 player in the world, threw a match against a weak opponent, Martin Vassallo Arguello, in Poland earlier this year, after the online gambling company Betfair identified suspicious betting patterns — against the heavily favored Davydenko and in large sums — during a match that was only slightly more important than an exhibition. The tour hasn’t fingered Davydenko yet, and probably won’t. But let’s just say it’s not entirely cynical to wonder if Davydenko wasn’t in the dark that day. Nothing he or anyone else has said can explain the fact that many of the bets were placed after he convincingly won the first set against Vassallo Arguello, ranked no. 87, before eventually retiring with an injury that fully healed several days later.

If Davydenko took a dive, he ought to be banned from the game. And even if he’s ultimately found not guilty, he probably deserves some blame, or scorn, for overshadowing a great season in tennis — one in which Roger Federer continued to rewrite the record books, Novak Djokovic emerged as a star, Serena Williams made a comeback, and Justine Henin dominated the tour with some of the best playing the women’s game has ever seen. Davydenko didn’t, however, deserve what happened to him in St. Petersburg last week.

In the second round there, Davydenko won the first set 6–1 against qualifier Marin Cilic, a talented 19-year-old from Croatia who stands 6-feet-5-inches. Cilic took the second set 7–5 with the help of four double faults from Davydenko. The Russian tossed in six more in the third set. After one of them, when Davydenko trailed 0–4, 0–15, chair umpire Jean-Philippe Dercq hit Davydenko with a code violation for “lack of best effort,” a rare penalty (it happened one other time this year, at a Challenger event — essentially the minor leagues of tennis). A five-minute argument ensued, with an animated Davydenko asking, “What’s this mean?” He added: “This is stupid. I never see in my life these code violations.”

He later told reporters that his legs had “collapsed”; Dercq didn’t buy it and asked why Davydenko hadn’t bothered to call for a trainer. The next day, the tour fined Davydenko $2,000 for his behavior.

Did Davydenko quit this match? I didn’t see anything beyond the two points before the argument and the argument itself, which is available on YouTube. Yet the circumstances suggest that he did. Legs or no legs, most players don’t double-fault 10 times in two sets, especially indoors. Davydenko has one of the highest first-serve percentages on the tour and a reliable second serve. Strike one.

Davydenko didn’t need to do well at this tournament. He recently qualified for a spot in the year-end Masters Cup, and will finish as the fourth- or fifth-ranked player in the world when the season ends. Davydenko plays a lot of tennis: So far this year, he’s played 77 matches (how’s that for “best effort”?) He also has a more important tournament next week, the Paris Masters, where he’s the defending champion. Strike two. Davydenko probably tanked at this tournament last year, too. He won the first set against Wesley Moodie, then ranked no. 135 in the world, and was tied at 3–3 in the second set when he retired with a foot injury. He won in Paris the next week on the same foot. Strike three.

Betfair won’t allow bets on Davydenko or Vassallo Arguello while the tour continues to investigate that match, so the tour has no knowledge of gambling on Davydenko’s match against Cilic. But the gambling investigation is the only reason Davydenko was hit with a warning and later a fine. This sort of tanking happens all the time in tennis, and has for years. Without the gambling investigation, Dercq probably wouldn’t have taken such an aggressive position, and the tour might not have felt compelled to fine Davydenko. In truth, no one would have heard of this, or written about it, if Davydenko wasn’t already under suspicion.

Who believes that we’re going to see an increase of warnings and fines against players who don’t try their best? By any reasonable standard, Marat Safin would have to empty his wallet every third match he plays. Remember when Djokovic defeated Federer in the Montreal final this summer? He won only five games in his next match, against Carlos Moya, and complained of being tired. Best effort? Compared to that performance, Davydenko’s isn’t half bad. He won a set, and maybe — just maybe — he tired after blowing the second set and became frustrated with how poorly he was playing. It stands to reason that it would have taken less effort to win the match, at 5–5 in the second set, than to lose it. Once he squandered the lead, perhaps he just imploded.

Put simply, Davydenko is a marked man, and that’s why he was made to suffer last week. But it doesn’t do tennis any good to embarrass him for behavior that almost everyone else in the game has shown from time to time. The fine won’t send a message to other players and it doesn’t signify some new resolve on the part of umpires. Most unfortunate of all, it brings more attention to a seemingly minor gambling problem — yes, minor — that currently afflicts tennis. In the last few months, we’ve learned that several no-name players were approached by gambling interests to fix matches, but said no thanks. That’s the extent of what we know. Compare that to what’s anticipated when George Mitchell discloses his report on performance-enhancing drugs in baseball. Minor or major?

Davydenko is hardly a sympathetic character. But until tennis develops a standard for “best effort” and commits to a crackdown on other half-hearted performances, there’s no point in calling attention to a man who has already received far too much of it.

tperrotta@nysun.com


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