Events / Ben Caudell / 29 November 2009 /

It may not be the dream final but this afternoon's clash between Nikolay Davydenko and Juan Martin Del Potro will provide an intriguing finale to a great week. Ben Caudell is backing the Russian to defy the Betfair markets once again.

Juan Martin Del Potro (ARG) v Nikolay Davydenko (RUS)

This is far from the final everyone had envisaged at the start of the tournament or even after the first couple of days. Both Nikolay Davydenko and Juan Martin Del Potro lost their first group matches against Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray respectively.

Several times this week I have said that Davydenko has the ability to go all the way at this year's event. Players have struggled to get to grips with his formidable tenacity at the back of the court; he is like a brick wall, he manages to get every ball back and hits his shots with power and accuracy. Against Roger Federer, the Russian played a tactically perfect game, he managed to badger the world number one into making unforced errors and was always present in each and every point. He never lost confidence, even when Federer was just two points away from winning the match in the third set. It was the first time Davydenko had won a match against the Swiss legend in 12 previous attempts.

Juan Martin Del Potro fought back from a 2-4 deficit in the third set to edge Robin Soderling 6-7(1), 6-3, 7-6(3) and reach the final on Saturday evening. The 21-year-old, who failed to get past the group stages at last year's event in Shanghai, has improved considerably over the last year, the highlight being winning the US Open.

Today's match is another hard one to call, Davydenko's serve is a lot less powerful than Juan Martin Del Potro's. For him to stand a chance of winning he will have to put the majority of his effort into holding serve and hoping to get the odd chance of a break on the Argentine's service games. Davydenko defeated a similar player in Robin Soderling earlier in the group matches so he will fancy his chances of a repeat performance today.

I have to stick by the person I have been most impressed with this week, so it is Davydenko whom I will be backing in today's final.

Selection: Back Nikolay Davydenko to win match @ [2.32]
Back Davydenko 2-1 @ [5.0]

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