Roger Federer of Switzerland hits a return to Nikolay Davydenko of Russia at the Masters Cup tennis tournament in Shanghai Nov. 14, 2007.--Xinhua

World number one Roger Federer pulled him back onto the defending road at the year-ending Masters Cup as the Swiss superhuman beat fourth seed Nikolay Davydenko in Shanghai yesterday.

The Swiss, in a highly unusual predicament after losing to Fernando Gonzalez in the opener of the Red Group round-robin competitions, needed only one hour and 28 minutes to beat Davydenko in his second outing 6-4, 6-3, leaving the Russian with a desperate 11-0 lifetime record, including three defeats in 2007.

After consecutive losses to Andy Roddick and Federer, Davydenko's aspirations of landing semifinals were almost ended, while Federer will automatically go through to the semi-finals with a victory in Friday's final round robin match against American number one Roddick.

"It is not like impossible to beat Federer, but you have to be mentally and physically tough," said a laughing Davydenko at the press conference. "I am happy to be on the tour, you know, I don't want to die now after losing to Federer (for the 11th time)."

Federer, the defending champion, and a three-time overall Masters Cup champion, was not in his best form against Davydenko, but did just enough to capitalize on the world number four's numerous mistakes.

The match was surprisingly tight at the outset as the opening set seemed on course for a tie-break with both players holding serve through the first seven games without any break points being played.

The 26-year-old 12-times Grand Slam champion ultimately showed some of his finest in the eighth, booking a double break point after a series of ferocious backhands set up an easy volley winner and converting the opening break of the match by drilling another beautiful defensive backhand.

Leading 5-3 and serving for the opener, however, the slew of errors that seemed to plague Federer and he gifted an immediate break back to the Russian number one.

But Davydenko demonstrated that he was more prone to bigger mistakes than Federer, dropping the first set at 6-4.

Federer then looked in total command in the second set, breaking twice, one more than Davydenko, to take the set and the match at 6-3.

Federer hit an uncharacteristic 39 unforced errors against just 26 from Davydenko, but pushed the Russian into 20 forced errors. The Swiss only had seven.

Besides, Federer drilled 23 winners in the match, Davydenko with 11.

"I thought I missed a few too many backhands maybe at the beginning, but then started to slice nicely and sometimes take achance also to let him make some mistakes. That was the right play today," said Federer.