LONDON (Reuters) – It seems hard to believe that only six months ago Andre Agassi was predicting Rafa Nadal would complete a calendar grand slam in 2009.

Agassi’s statement proved to be the kiss of death for Nadal’s season as instead of emulating the feat last achieved by Australia’s Rod Laver 40 years ago, his winning run instantly dried up and he failed to win a title since May.

The year that started with much promise when he captured the Australian Open crown before adding another four titles in the space of 14 weeks, ended with a whimper on Wednesday as he became the first player to be eliminated from the ATP World Tour Finals.

Two straight set defeats means the Spaniard has no chance of progressing any further in the elite eight-man event even if he beats Novak Djokovic in his final round robin match on Friday.

Despite his barren spell over the past six months, he had arrived in London with a realistic chance of grabbing the year-end top ranking from French Open and Wimbledon champion Roger Federer.

But Nadal barely looked like a man capable of climbing to the summit of his sport in his match against Nikolay Davydenko on Wednesday and he said reclaiming the world number one ranking had not been his top priority this week.

“I didn’t come here to be number one. It wasn’t my goal because I’m not playing well enough to be number one right now,” he told reporters after his 6-1 7-6 defeat by Davydenko.

LONDON (Reuters) – Rafael Nadal will not be carrying home any fond memories from his trips to London this year after he became the first player to be knocked out of the ATP World Tour Finals Wednesday.

Five months after limping out of Wimbledon without defending his title due to aching knees, the Spaniard bore little resemblance to the player who once terrorized his opponents as he slumped to a 6-1 7-6 defeat by Russia’s Nikolay Davydenko.

“I fought a lot. I tried my best all the time but it wasn’t enough to win these matches. That’s it, no?” summed up Nadal, who lost both of his Group B clashes in straight sets.

While Nadal was left to lick his wounds, Swede Robin Soderling became the first qualifier for the semi-finals when he battered world number three Novak Djokovic 7-6 6-1 for his second major shock of the tournament.

Soderling, only competing in the year-end showpiece at London’s O2 Arena after Andy Roddick’s injury-enforced withdrawal, backed up his opening win over Nadal with another magnificent exhibition of power and precision.

It was the kind of display Nadal would have been proud of but instead the Spaniard spent more time shaking his head in frustration than producing winners during a lopsided first set against Davydenko that flashed by in 27 minutes.

Trailing 4-2 in the second set, Nadal appeared to be heading toward one of the worst defeats in his career when a child’s voice boomed out from the darkened arena: “Wake up Rafa, remember you’re the number two in the world.”

LONDON (Reuters) – Champions Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic lost all hope of defending their ATP World Tour Finals doubles title on Tuesday when they suffered their second successive round-robin defeat at the O2 Arena.

The Canadian-Serbian duo, who won the crown in Shanghai last year, once again failed to produce their best game as they went down 6-3 6-4 to Czech Frantisek Cermak and Slovakian Michal Mertinak.

The result left the Wimbledon champions rooted to the bottom of Group A, which is topped by the undefeated pairing of Mahesh Bhupathi and Mark Knowles.

“We had high hopes coming in here. We were playing well; we were the number one team,” Nestor told reporters. “It’s frustrating to lose to teams that we’ve been beating but that’s part of life.”

Their defeat handed the Bryan brothers a reprieve as the Americans could now pip Nestor and Zimonjic to the year-end number one ranking.

Second seeds Bob and Mike Bryan also lost their opening match but could still qualify for the semi-finals as they have two more round-robin matches to play in Group B.

Bhupathi and Knowles relied on the greater depth of experience to outlast Polish duo Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski 3-6 6-3 10-7 (champions tiebreak). They became the first players to book their place in Saturday’s semi-finals.

LONDON (Reuters) – Robin Soderling is unlikely to be on Rafael Nadal’s Christmas card list this year after once again getting under the Spaniard’s skin at the ATP World Tour Finals.

Nadal’s slim hopes of reclaiming the world number one spot from Roger Federer were hit when he lost 6-4 6-4 to the Swede on Monday in the first of his three round-robin matches.

Soderling was only invited to the season-ending tournament at the last minute after Andy Roddick withdrew through injury.

“It’s always fun to play against a good player. I always enjoy playing against the top guys. Nadal is for sure one of them,” the Swede told reporters.

“It feels better to beat world number two than world number 200. So I always enjoy beating good players than lower-ranked players.

“But me, personally, I have nothing against Rafa. As I said, we played a lot of times and we always had good matches. I always enjoy playing against him.”

“Enjoy” is not the word Nadal would use to describe his encounters with Soderling.

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s Beth Tweddle raised the domed roof at the O2 Arena on Sunday after she tumbled to glory on the floor exercise, while Olympic champion Zou Kai and his team mates showed China had lost none of the sparkle that helped them dominate the 2008 Beijing Games.

However, it was Tweddle who handed promoters of the 2012 London Olympics with their dream marketing tool when she outshone her rivals to win her first world floor title with a rousing routine which earned her 14.650.

“The crowd gave me such a buzz and they just cheered me on to the medal,” Tweddle, who is considered an asymmetric bars specialist, told the fans.

“I just wanted to go out there and show that I had something to prove. Roll on 2012.”

While Tweddle is guaranteed to become one of the faces of the next Olympics, when the gymnastics will be staged at the same venue, fans visiting this week will have already worked out there will be one anthem that will be played over and over again.

Over the weekend, Chinese anthem “March of the Volunteers” was aired six times, with Zou (16.150 on horizontal bars), Wang Guanyin (15.975 on parallel bars) and Deng Linlin (15.000 on balance beam) striking gold on Sunday to ensure the world’s most populous nation won half of the 12 titles up for grabs.

Despite the precision, excellence and artistry of the Chinese trio, it was Tweddle who stole the show.

LONDON (Reuters) – The risks faced by young gymnasts in the chase for medals were again highlighted on Sunday when Jessica Gil Ortiz’s bid to win the floor exercise title ended painfully with a suspected neck injury.

The 19-year-old Colombian was attempting to finish off a high-flying tumbling sequence with a double front somersault when she banged her head at an uncomfortable angle, hushing almost 12,000 fans at the O2 Arena into silence.

Ortiz stayed curled in a foetal position at the corner of the marked area for what seemed an eternity before her coach and paramedics ran to her aid.

After being fitted with a neck brace, she was eventually carried off on a stretcher while her rivals looked on in shock.

The competition was held up for more than 10 minutes and officials said later: “She was being taken to hospital but the initial prognosis is that the injury was not too serious.”

Ortiz’s injury was just the latest suffered by gymnasts at this year’s championships.

All-around favorite and German showman Fabian Hambuechen had to hobble off on crutches after rupturing a ligament in his left foot during training last Sunday.

LONDON (Reuters) – Zhang Hongtao, Olympic champion He Kexin and Yan Mingyong began China’s gold rush at the world gymnastics championships by producing a series of eye-catching routines on Saturday.

The nation which dominated the 2008 Beijing Games by winning nine out of the 14 titles up for grabs, had to wait until the penultimate day of this year’s competition to strike gold.

Zou Kai, who climbed to the top of the rostrum three times last year, had been expected to be the first of the Chinese winners in the floor final but he was squeezed out.

Romanian Marian Dragulescu tumbled to glory with a score of 15.700 after performing a series of complex twists and soaring somersaults, beating Zou by 0.025.

The 28-year-old gave the fans the thumbs up as he stepped on top of the podium to receive his fourth gold medal on the floor.

“Every time it’s harder so every time you win another one it’s more difficult, the work is twice or three times more so I’m very satisfied,” Dragulescu told reporters.

Apart from Dragulescu, no one else on the day had the talent or the belief to stop the Chinese.

LONDON (Reuters) – Bulgarian gymnast Jordan Jovtchev waltzed away with the silver medal at the world championships but his dedication to do well on reality show Dancing with the Stars could have cost him the top prize at the O2 Arena.

Over the past few weeks, the 36-year-old has been putting in the hours to perfect his foxtrot and salsa routines but that meant he was out slightly out of sync while performing his day job.

Jovtchev, a twice former world champion, missed out on the rings gold medal by 0.1 point, eclipsed by the single mindedness of China’s Yan Mingyong.

“I’ve been practicing two times a week for like 20 minutes. I have no time because I have other things to do as I’m doing Dancing with the Stars,” the five-times Olympian said after picking up his eighth world medal on the rings.

“It’s too much other stuff and not much time to practice as I’m tired doing other things.”

Despite his lack of commitment to the sport in which he won his first world medal eight years ago in Ghent, Jovtchev showed that he still had the strength and the belief to outclass much younger rivals in the strongman’s event.

“I’m more than satisfied because when I got here I wasn’t really ready for the competition, I was maybe 60 percent,” he said.