The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Nadal secures record 10th Barcelona title
Tennis: Milestone victory as Spaniard eases to victory over Murray’s conqueror
Rafael Nadal reached double figures for the second week in succession with a 10th title at the Barcelona Open yesterday.
By hitting the milestone at the MonteCarlo Masters last weekend, Nadal became the first man in the Open era to win the same ATP Tour event 10 times.
There never looked any doubt that he would repeat the feat in Barcelona on the court that bears his name, and he duly romped to a 6-4 6-1 victory over Dominic Thiem in the final.
Nadal will go for a 10th title at the French Open in a month’s time, and on this form he unquestionably heads to Roland Garros as the favourite.
Thiem defeated world no 1 Andy Murray in the semi-finals and stayed with Nadal over the first eight games.
But the third seed claimed the first break of serve to win the opening set and did not look back, repelling all Thiem’s firepower in the second set and forcing the Austrian to overhit.
Aljaz Bedene’s 16-match winning streak was ended by Lucas Pouille in the final of the Hungarian Open.
The British no 4 had been unbeaten for more than a month, a run taking in two titles on the second-tier Challenger Tour and one of the best weeks of his career in Budapest.
But top seed Pouille was a step up in class on clay from his previous opponents and the Frenchman eased to his second ATP Tour title with a 6-3 6-1 win in just an hour and four minutes.
Pouille, who is at a career-high 14th in the world rankings, pummelled the Bedene serve, with the man ranked 68th winning just 25% of points on his second delivery.
Murray lost a brutal battle with the powerful Thiem as his run in Barcelona was ended in the semi-finals on Saturday.
The Scot overcame a slow start, which looked set at one stage to condemn him to a swift defeat, to drag himself back into the contest.
However, Thiem proved too strong as he clinched a 6-2 3-6 6-4 win in two hours and 15 minutes.
A day after needing a final-set tie-break to see off Albert Ramos-Vinolas in just shy of three hours, the Scot again endured another gruelling work-out.
He was outclassed in the first set, but dug in during the second as he grew into the contest and levelled the match with a single break of serve.
He was a break up and then down by one in the third as both players proved near impossible to shake off, but fourth seed Thiem prevailed to claim his third British scalp of the week after knocking out Kyle Edmund and Dan Evans.
The Brit craved matches as he arrived in Barcelona and got just that, playing three quality opponents in lengthy tussles he believes will serve him well for upcoming ATP World Tour Masters 1000 events in Madrid and Rome.
“I got three matches in three days against very different players.
“It was good for me to play a number of different match-ups. To play for over two hours today and three [hours] yesterday will be good for me as well.”
“In the first set, I didn’t have many chances, but I started to play better in the second,” said Murray on the ATP website.