Spaniard Rafa Nadal won his tenth title in the Thousand Masters in Rome, on Sunday, by beating Serbian Novak Djokovic, the number one in the standings and defending the title, 7-5, 1-6, 6-3 in two hours and 49 minutes. }
Nadal, number 3 in the world rankings, equalized Djokovic’s 36th victory in the 1000 Masters race, and claimed his second title this year, after the one he won in Barcelona, by winning the 28th time in 57 matches with Nol.
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The Spaniard won his tenth title in Rome after a high-intensity tournament, where he had to save two game points against Canadian Denis Shapovalov in the third round.
Rafael Nadal, Spanish tennis player.
Foro Italico’s central court, attended by 2,917 fans, just under 25% of the total capacity, hosted the biggest classic in modern tennis, the 57th version of the duel between Nadal and Djokovic.
With Rafa winning on Sunday, they had previously competed in fifteen of the last 17 copies in Rome. Mallorca and the Belgrade player met for the first time this year, after a final encounter in the Roland Garros final, when Rafa won his thirteenth Parisian title in the final.
Repeated judgment of Roman clay after another very intense battle. Djokovic, who spent four hours and 56 minutes on the track on Saturday, had their best start when he was forced to win the quarter-finals and semi-finals against Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas and Italian Lorenzo Sonigo.
The Serbian got away 2-0, but Nadal promptly brought the break back. Both players pushed themselves to the extreme and Rafa slipped in the race again on one of the lines and fell to the ground, which actually happened to him in the second round against German Alexander Zverev.
“We are going to kill ourselves here,” said the man from Manacor, who was wounded in one leg, annoyed. He was calmer and clearer than Djokovic and managed to win the very close first set thanks to a series of three games in a row, from 4-5 to 7-5, to gain a valuable advantage after one hour and fifteen minutes.
Djokovic looked visibly annoyed and shouted loudly at his coaches, but he managed to drastically change his position in the second set, and with two breaks in the fourth and sixth games, he regained the parity by 6-1 in 44 minutes. The only regret for Rafa was in the third game, when he had a chance to break, without being able to take advantage of it. The pace and intensity of competition rose again in the third set, leveling up to 2-2, when the decisive moment in the duel came.
Nadal needed to save two balls, one with a great backhand, and won the match with a great forehand, and celebrated in style with “Haya”. Rafa knew how much the point weighed and in fact from that moment he raised his level vertically, until he broke Djokovic’s service in the next match to escape 4-2.
He got his first match point with 5-2 and was sent by Djokovic, but he sealed his victory with a 6-3 dispatch that was crowned for the tenth time in Rome, 16 years after his first epic victory, in 2005 against Argentine Guillermo Correa.
EFE
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