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His performance will, however, draw more attention to the player who has had to live with constant doubt during the months the investigation has been going on. He has had his family phone numbers demanded of him, aggressive questioning from the media, and even an umpire who decided to lecture him on how to serve better, suggesting he did it "like me".
Davydenko seems to have survived with satirical humour - "I don't think about the investigation. I think my lawyer should think about it, or my manager," he sighed - with the fighting qualities for which many of the Russians are known, and with even greater attention to making his game more aggressive and consistent.
He hits flat, forcefully and with clever tactical variations. Nadal could not do those things, though he clearly tried to beef up his topspin, containing game with more positive intent. But he made mistakes when he did.
After a shaky start, in which Davydenko looked likely to fall behind and once missed a smash from within a few feet of the net, he was superb, going from strength to strength after saving break points against him in the seventh game.
He then broke Nadal to love, consolidated by holding his next service game to love, and never looked back. "He played unbelievable tennis," admitted Nadal.
Even Davydenko seemed shocked to be holding the trophy. "It is surprising for me to stand here, it is crazy," he said, before revealing that he had played the entire tournament with only one racket. "I only have one racket and I played three sets in virtually every match. Thankfully I didn't break a string."
Davydenko and Nadal are among the 20 leading players who have posed a threat to Etienne de Villiers' leadership of the men's tour. They have signed a letter to the ATP board, of which De Villiers is chairman, demanding that the South African's contract not be renewed at the end of the year without a proper application process.
This increases the possibility that De Villiers will pay with his job for making some controversial decisions, which have included the abandonment of a round-robin system in Las Vegas last year and the attempted downgrading of two popular clay-court events.
Davydenko and Nadal are two of the three top-ranked players - Roger Federer is the third - who criticised De Villiers last year at a press conference called to discuss the proposed demotion of Monte Carlo and Hamburg. The ATP is facing one costly lawsuit over the German tournament's future, which will be heard in Delaware in June, and may face another from Davydenko if the investigation into corrupt betting fails to implicate the Russian.
Nadal is also upset at this year's calendar change which has brought three clay-court Masters Series tournaments together in four potentially exhausting weeks this month and next. "For me it's terrible," the Spaniard said.
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