No stopping Nadal
World No. 1 beats Dimitrov to enter Masters final
Monte Carlo, April 21: World number one Rafael Nadal swept aside Grigor Dimitrov to ease into his 12th Monte Carlo Masters final with a 6-4, 6-1 victory on Saturday.
The 31-year-old, who needs to win an 11th Monaco title to retain the number one ranking ahead of Roger Federer, will face either Kei Nishikori or Alexander Zverev in Sunday’s final.
Nadal came through a tight first set but always looked too strong for Dimitrov and raced through the second in half an hour.
The top seed is bidding for an outright record 31st Masters title this week and extended his run of consecutive sets won on clay to 34.
Nadal, playing his first ATP tournament since he retired from his Australian Open quarterfinal with a hip injury, has shown no signs of rust.
Following a 6-0, 6-2 LastEight demolition of Dominic Thiem, Nadal has lost only 16 games in the four matches this week.
Dimitrov immediately put Nadal’s serve under pressure with two perfectly-judged lobs forcing deuce, but the top seed came through an eightminute opener.
Nadal didn’t take long to get into his stride, breaking at the first time of asking as Dimitrov struggled in the longer rallies.
The Bulgarian continued to go for his shots and brought up three breakback points in game five as Nadal followed a double fault with two wayward groundstrokes.
Nadal fired long, before Dimitrov saved a break point himself with a venomous forehand to level at 3-3.
The fourth seed was displaying the resolve needed to push Nadal on his favourite surface, and came back from break point down again as the Spaniard continued to miss chances.