[2] Nikolay was born on June 2, 1981, in Sievierodonetsk, at that time Severodonetsk, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union, in the family of Vladimir and Tatiana Davydenko.

In the fourth round of the French Open, he upset one of the tournament favourites and the previous year's runner-up, Guillermo Coria in four sets.

After a great season, he qualified for the Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai for the first time and reached the semifinals, losing to David Nalbandian.

He was slow to find his form in the clay court season, but finally did at the Rome Masters, losing in the semifinal to Rafael Nadal in an enthralling match.

His good form continued, and he reached the semifinals for the second time at the French Open, losing to Roger Federer again, in straight sets.

Davydenko began the European clay-court season with a final appearance in his next tournament, the Estoril Open in Portugal, where he met world no.

Appearing at the 2008 Summer Olympics, Davydenko's stay in Beijing was brief; despite being seeded fourth at the Games, he would be upset by Paul-Henri Mathieu in the second round.

He beat Juan Martín del Potro and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the round-robin matches to progress to the semifinals, where he defeated Andy Murray to reach the final.

He defeated Daniel Köllerer in straight sets, but was forced to withdraw before his second-round match against Lukáš Dlouhý because of a left heel injury.

The injury he sustained in Chennai earlier in the year returned, forcing Davydenko to withdraw from the 1000 Series tournaments in Indian Wells and Miami.

Davydenko reached his second semifinal of the year in Estoril by eliminating Juan Carlos Ferrero in the second round and Mardy Fish in the quarterfinals, but was stopped by American James Blake.

In his last tournament before the French Open, Nikolay advanced to the third round in Madrid, before he was forced to withdraw before his match with Andy Roddick due to a leg injury.

He dropped a set apiece to Diego Junqueira and Stanislas Wawrinka and beat eighth seed Fernando Verdasco en route.

Davydenko then lost to Andy Murray in the quarterfinals of the Rogers Cup in Montreal, a loss which snapped a 12-match winning streak.

He won his third title of the year at the 2009 Malaysian Open by beating Gaël Monfils in the quarterfinals, Robin Söderling in the semifinals, and Fernando Verdasco in the final.

A week later at the 2010 Qatar ExxonMobil Open, Davydenko defeated Roger Federer in the semifinal and Rafael Nadal in the final to claim his twentieth ATP World Tour title.

[10] With this victory in 2010, Davydenko became the second player to beat both Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in the same tournament (after Juan Martín del Potro at the 2009 US Open) on separate occasions.

He then failed to win back-to-back matches in his next four tournaments until the 2010 Western & Southern Financial Group Masters, where he defeated Robby Ginepri and David Ferrer, both in three sets, before falling to Roger Federer in the quarterfinals.

He also reached the quarterfinals of the 2010 China Open, but failed to defend his title in the Shanghai Rolex Masters and fell out the top 10 for the first time in over a year.

Then, at the 2011 BMW Open tournament, he started slowly but progressively found some good form, which allowed him to eventually win the final against Florian Mayer.

[16] Davydenko did slightly better at the US Open, winning his first-round match against Argentinian Guido Pella but losing in the second round to local Mardy Fish in five sets.

In July 2012 Davydenko represented the Russian Federation at the 2012 London Olympic Games, with the tennis tournament being played at Wimbledon.

In the men's singles competition Davydenko won his first-round match against Radek Štěpánek of the Czech Republic but lost in the second round to Japan's Kei Nishikori.

Davydenko's final tournament appearance of 2012 was the indoor in Basel, Switzerland in late October, where he lost in the second round to Paul-Henri Mathieu.

[17] Davydenko started his 2013 season by reaching the finals of the Qatar ExxonMobil Open in January after defeating Spain's David Ferrer (then ranked 5 in the world) in the semifinals.

He won his first clay court match of the season at the Düsseldorf Open by defeating Dudi Sela before losing to Jiri Vesely second round.

His tremendous footspeed and anticipation enabled him to hit the ball early which caught opponents out of position and allowed him to dictate the play, somewhat similar to former world no.

Many tennis analysts also criticized Davydenko for lacking variation in his game due to the fact that he mainly played from the baseline with his consistent groundstrokes.

This was evident during the 2006 Tennis Masters Cup against James Blake[19] and Rafael Nadal where he won the first set and had the lead in the second, but lost.

At the 2014 BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells California, Davydenko was playing with a Babolat AeroPro Drive GT.