Nadal to face Ferrer for crown
PARIS — Defending champion Rafael Nadal will play fellow Spaniard David Ferrer Sunday in the final of the French Open after staging a “miracle” comeback in the fifth set against Novak Djokovic.
Third- seeded Nadal defeated the top-ranked Serbian 6- 4, 3- 6, 6-1, 6-7 (3-7), 9-7 in four hours and 37 minutes on the main Court Philippe Chatrier at Roland Garros in Paris.
“For us, it is really a miracle,” Toni Nadal, Rafael’s uncle and longtime coach, said shortly after his nephew rallied from 4-2 down in the final set. “It is incredible.”
“This one is a special one,” Rafael Nadal said. “If we talk about everything that makes a match big, today we had all of these ingredients.” “This one is a special one,” Rafael Nadal said of his victory over Novak Djokovic in the French Open semifinals.
Nadal, who returned in February from a sevenmonth break because of a knee injury, faces Ferrer for the title Sunday.
The fourth-seeded Ferrer beat France’s Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, 6-1, 7- 6 (7-3), 6-2 in the other semifinal. Tsonga was trying to become the first Frenchman to win the event since Yannick Noah 30 years ago.
Ferrer has won just four of 23 matches against Nadal.
“I am good, I am not tired; I’ll need that against Nadal,” Ferrer said after he reached his first major final without losing a set.
Serena Williams of the United States and defending champion Maria Sharapova of Russia will play in the women’s final Saturday.
Williams has beaten Sharapova 12 straight times, taking 24 of their 27 sets in that span.
“Whatever I did in the past hasn’t worked,” Sharapova said, “so I’ll have to try to do something different.”
After losing in the second round at Wimbledon to then 100th-ranked Lu- kas Rosol of the Czech Republic a year ago, Nadal was off the men’s tour until this year to recover from a partially torn patellar tendon and inflammation in his left knee. The injury forced him to miss the London Olympics, the U.S. Open and the Australian Open.
Although his match against Djokovic was grueling, the left-hander said later that he “enjoyed suffering.”
“What was harder, when I was in Mallorca last year, I had to watch these sort of matches on TV,” he said after hitting 61 winners, seven more than Djokovic.
“He showed the courage in the right moments and went for his shots, and when he was break down in the fifth, he made some incredible shots from the baseline,” Djokovic said.