THERE IS much more to Nikolay Davydenko than meets the eye. The suggestion that the Russian’s girlfriend is Camille Nevière, the French model whose relationship with Marcos Baghdatis was highly tempestuous at best, is doing the rounds of Flushing Meadows. If it is true, one’s hat has to be doffed to the balding, bony, unpretentious world No 6.
Mischief may be in the air — it often is when the sport’s corridors are clogged at grand-slam tournaments — but Baghdatis played Davydenko once this year, losing in Key Biscayne, Florida, and, not too long after, he and Camille, the stepdaughter of Guillaume Payre, his coach, decided to split.
The pair had been a front-page item when the Cypriot reached the final of the Australian Open in January.
There has been no sign of Nevière in New York and Davydenko seemingly is coping well whatever the circumstances, for his route to a fourth-round meeting today with Andy Murray has been calculated — one set dropped, the fortune of the second round, when his opponent retired after only a set, and a third-round spanking handed out to an unseeded Pole.
Murray’s march, on the contrary, has been speckled with colour, not least in his five-set victory over Fernando González, of Chile, on Sunday, one that had the South Americans cooing in admiration. “He plays the game with such cool,” one veteran Argentinian radio commentator said. “It is funny to me how he is.”
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Davydenko isn’t one for rib-ticklers. The No 7 seed, who defeated Murray in three sets in the Masters Series in Indian Wells in March, remains to be convinced that too much ought to be read into the Scot’s victory in Cincinnati over Roger Federer, the world No 1 and US Open champion. As locker-room lore would have it, no one believes that Federer was actually giving his all.
“We know already that Federer should have retired before Cincinnati because when he won the event in Toronto (the previous week), I heard from his girlfriend that he was not going to play Cincinnati, so I am surprised that he went there and not surprised that he lost, because when Federer wants to play, he doesn’t lose to anybody,” Davydenko said.
“Now I think Murray has to beat me to get to the quarterfinals and then maybe (Marat) Safin to play Federer in the semi-finals. If he beats Federer this time then, yes, he really is a player who can be a grand-slam champion. I am feeling great, I think the style of Murray suits me. I will try to play faster against him.”
When Davydenko edged the British No 1 in California six months ago, the first schism in Murray’s relationship with Mark Petchey, his former coach, was beginning to form. Today, 17 matches and 14 victories into the Brad Gilbert regime, sweetness and light abounds. Into the last 16 of a grand-slam event for the second consecutive tournament, the teenager spent yesterday “chilling”, bolstered by memories of his participation in the Andre Agassi celebrations — the American played his final competitive match on Sunday — and eager to use as much of the feel-good element as he can to further his own development.
“Andre has inspired me,” Murray said. “I’m sure all tennis players would love to have the respect he has from the other players, the fans. He’s huge. He’s the only player who, in the last few weeks, I would have accepted losing to here. I would have loved to have played him before he finished but my timing wasn’t good.”
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There has been little wrong with that element of his performances here, for which John Lloyd, about to captain a Great Britain Davis Cup side for the first time, is truly thankful.
Lloyd confirmed yesterday that Murray will be the lead man against Ukraine in Odessa from September 22 to 24, in the Euro African Zone relegation play-off. It is a side of three Scots — Murray, Alan Mackin and Jamie Baker, the latter winning a place in the squad for real, having been a hitting partner in Switzerland a year ago.
Greg Rusedski has intimated that he will be fit enough to compete in the doubles, which is likely to be his final appearance as a professional before, like Agassi, he slips into the sunset.