King of Clay rules over Djokovic
RAFAEL NADAL recorded a first win over Novak Djokovic in almost three years yesterday to seal a place in the Madrid Open final.
After a run of seven straight defeats to his rival, dating back to the 2014 French Open final, Nadal reversed the trend with a 6-2 6-4 victory.
The Spaniard, a four- time Madrid champion, broke the Djokovic serve twice early in the opening set to take a 4-0 lead with barely 20 minutes played.
Nadal was hitting forehand winners from all over the court and he comfortably saw out the first set before breaking again at the start of the second.
Djokovic earned his first break point of the match in the 12th game and he took the opportunity to draw level at 2- 2 but Nadal was in a ruthless mood and hit back immediately with another break to regain a lead he would not relinquish.
Two match points came and went and Nadal had to save a break point on his own serve before he closed out the match.
Should he lift the trophy again in Madrid, Nadal will overtake Roger Federer in the world rankings and return to the top four.
He said: “What’s important to me is to make it to another final. As time goes by, what is important is the titles, not the opponents that you have beaten. It’s just the titles that you have won.
“It’s true that some matches are more important than others. But I’m just here to try to make it the best possible way, to play my best tennis and, of course, to beat an opponent such as Novak, it gives you a lot of confidence. It shows you you’re working in the right way.
“I think I played a really good first set. The second set I was a little bit more nervous. I played a little bit shorter. I think then the match was more even. Finally, I managed to win it. It’s a very important victory.
“It gives me the possibility to play another final and to continue in a positive line.
“I am happy the way I played today, being able to make it to the final once
again. I’ll try to be 100% ready for tomorrow’s match.”
Nadal, who moved to No. 1 in the Emirates ATP Race To London with a quarter- final win over David Goffin on Friday, will also bid to tie Djokovic atop the Masters 1000 titles leaderboard with his 30th crown.
“Rafa was obviously a better player today,” Djokovic said.
“He deserved to win. He was controlling the match from beginning to the end. All in all, I did try my best.
“It wasn’t a very high quality of tennis from my side. I made a lot of unforced errors, especially in the first set.
“Just his quality was very high. He managed to do whatever he wanted, especially in the first set. I was getting a lot of balls back. He was serving well. He was using his court positioning well.
“Today was warmer than last three, four days, so conditions were quite different. The ball was bouncing very high. He managed to be better in these kind of conditions.”