Davidenko is at the limit of his reserves, his performance on friday will very much hinge on how his body responds, as the road warrior he is, with 30 plus tournaments a year, I bet he will be fit for battle. The other side of the coin are the mental scars which take a lot longer to heal or never do and one of them is from the Australian Open 2006 where Davidenko gave away the match by hitting a cross forehand in reply to a very shaky short forehand from Roger, that led to an easy passing shot by the latter.
This does not mean Davidenko will not be a threat, from what I have seen he his capable of taking the ball early and drive the corners cross or up the line with uncanny accuracy, the question is that enough, will he be able to vary? How many times will he sucumb to Roger's short backhand slice?
Roger on the other hand is favorite in all departments, except movement where I think Davidenko is far better, this makes it a tall order for Nikolai to fulfill. Talking about dominance, I still remember the final between Lendl-Cash at Wimbledon, Lendl was the number 1 in the world and attempting at all costs to win the crown. On paper Lendl should have won but, on the court Pat Cash with mesmerizing speed from the very first games reached every ball Lendl threw at him, all of a sudden the court seemed to narrow for Ivan and he started spraying errors and Pat got the early breaks which set the tone for the remainder of the match and the rest is history.
Can this be a warning to Roger? Yes, but such feat on clay is almost impossible.
Let's hope we will be able to see some fire works and a good match, not the rather boring drubbings Roger has accustomed us to. Mind you I want Federer to win but, I also like to see competition and drama!
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