St Petersburg Open - Day 3

St Petersburg Open - Day 3

So, I think that you are interesting what happened on Wednesday. Well, let’s start from the beginning. Nikolay was scheduled to play fourth on the centre court. And before his match he practiced with Tursunov. It was really funny. Nikolay and Dmitry were in a good mood. They joked a lot with each other. They had fun and enjoyed themselves. You can see it on photos. And about 3 hours later everything changed and things didn’t seem so funny, Nikolay had to retire because of foot injury. :(
Unfortunately, I don’t have picts of the match itself. But on the official site of St.Petersburg Open is a picture of Nikolay with his bandaged heel.

On the press conference Nikolay explained what had happened: "I hurt my right foot in the seventh game of the first set when I ran for a short ball. I just felt a huge pain in my foot. I don't think it was my ankle, it was more like my heel. I called a trainer after the next changeover to tape my foot. I won the first set but in the second I felt more pain and had trouble moving around the court. I probably could have continued but I wasn't sure how I would feel tomorrow and I just didn't want to take any chances with a Masters tournament in Paris coming up next week and the Masters Cup in Shanghai to follow." And also Nikolay said that the surface Gerflor, that was used on St.Petersburg Open wasn’t perfect and there was a high probability to get an injury on it.

I was greatly surprised when my friend told me that she saw Davydenko on Thursday. He came there for an autograph session. Nikolay stayed only for about 10 or 15 minutes. He signed only a couple of photos and magazines and left. That was strange, because he usually signed a lot of autographs and never minded to take a photo with his fans. But not this time. May be he was just tired or in a bad mood. Hope that he will be ok soon.

Nikolay, good luck next time!!!

Best regards,

Irisha.