Guess what? Federer is back again!
After his embarassing performance at the Abu Dhabi exhibition, the world nr.3 is back in style. On the paper he had a very tricky first round vs the former 2011 finalist in Doha, but Davydenko is not the same player as 1 year ago. It took less than 1 hour for the Swiss to win the match.
‘It was a combination of me playing really well and Nikolay not finding his range like we’re used to seeing in the past,’ Federer said. ‘This is obviously an important step to get used to the conditions.’
‘If you don’t have that (drive) you will have many losses due to a lack of interest,’ said Federer.
‘Your mindset has to be right and there’s a lot of sacrifice during the year and throughout your career, but you get the returns and you just have to remind yourself how lucky you are.’
On the other side of the draw a struggling Nadal manage to win a very difficult match in 3 sets vs Germany’s Philipp Kohlschreiber with a 6-3 7-6 6-3 result.
The only moments I didn’t play well were the beginning of the second and after the tiebreak. For the rest, I think I played a very solid match,’ Nadal said.
‘My shoulder is fine. I felt something at the beginning of practice, but later, after three, four minutes, when I got warmed up, I feel the shoulder with perfect condition. The shoulder needs days like today to get the power.’
