Nadal Tops Ferrer for 7th Barcelona Title at LinesMaker

Nadal Tops Ferrer for 7th Barcelona Title

BARCELONA (ATP/Newsfeed) – Rafael Nadal became the first player in the Open Era to win two tour­na­ments seven times after beat­ing David Fer­rer 7–6 (1), 7–5 in Sunday’s Barcelona Open final.

The second-ranked Nadal’s 21st straight vic­tory on clay fol­lowed up his eighth straight win in Monte Carlo, as Nadal won the 10th all-Spanish ATP final for a 48th career win.

The sixth-ranked Fer­rer lost his fourth Barcelona Open final to Nadal, who saved 12 of 15 break points for a 34th straight vic­tory at Barcelona.

Nadal skipped toward the net in cel­e­bra­tion after hit­ting a back­hand win­ner on match point. The six-time French Open cham­pion dis­played his nor­mal resilience and steady play to over­come Fer­rer in a match marked by grind­ing ral­lies and spec­tac­u­lar shot­mak­ing more rem­i­nis­cent of a major final.

“This is the hard­est match I had on clay court this sea­son, David always takes you to the limit,” Nadal told Span­ish state TV. “A bit of it was lot­tery, luck fell on my side today.”

With a warm sun bear­ing down, the play­ers exchanged early breaks before set­tling into a slugfest of pow­er­ful ground­strokes with long ral­lies often won by mag­nif­i­cently struck win­ners to the line.

Nei­ther player let a shot go unchal­lenged with the rhythm only dis­rupted in the fourth game when both play­ers stopped as med­ical staff helped a spec­ta­tor in the stands.

Nadal saved seven of eight break points in the first set, includ­ing five which were set points for Fer­rer in the 12th game. He fired an ace to save the last before hold­ing for the tiebreaker, and Ferrer’s dou­ble fault allowed Nadal to get ahead 4–1 as he took the first set in a gru­el­ing 93 minutes.

Fer­rer saved a triple break point, but then handed Nadal a 3–1 sec­ond set lead when his fore­hand sailed long.

Nadal showed a dip in con­cen­tra­tion on his next ser­vice game as he was forced to save a triple-break chance before net­ting on the fourth oppor­tu­nity to let his oppo­nent back in.

Fer­rer con­verted another break point when Nadal double-faulted to lead 5–4, but then hit wide on serve to be bro­ken after Nadal’s incred­i­ble scram­ble had set up the break chance.

After serv­ing to love to lead 6–5, Nadal’s superb cross­court fore­hand win­ner put him ahead as he broke Fer­rer for the fourth time to pick up the $ 400,000 winner’s check in 2 hours, 41 minutes.

“Like always, Rafa,” said Fer­rer, who has three wins already this sea­son. “I’ve lost four times but four times against a great.”

Only Roger Fed­erer and Novak Djokovic have beaten Nadal in a clay court final.

Our sports betting news features unique sports betting articles as well as current sports news compiled from leading wire services. This arti­cle was dis­trib­uted by Syn­di­cated Sports news wire and aggre­ga­tion ser­vice, For more ten­nis news see: Nadal tops Fer­rer for 7th Barcelona title.

Related Posts:

• Nadal Beats Fer­rer for 7th Barcelona Open Win
• Nadal, Fer­rer Meet Again in Barcelona
• Nadal, Raonic Advance in Barcelona
• Nadal, Mur­ray Reach Barcelona Quarters
• Nadal Cruises Into Barcelona Third Round

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