Nadal Reclaims Roman Title

Rafael Nadal is on a title roll. He bested Novak Djokovic 7-6(2) 6-2 after a little over two hours of play. Nadal broke a Roman tournament record by winning four titles in five years. It is his third-consecutive title and his fifth title of the year. More importantly, it is his 15th Masters title, and he is now staring down Agassi’s record of 17 Masters titles.

Djokovic put up a valiant effort, but Nadal was able to get past him. The Serb played well and made great shots. Nadal won the important points when he needed to, and Djokovic made a few too many errors at the wrong moments.

It looked like Djokovic would easily win his opening service game, but somehow Nadal got into the game and broke the Serb. Djokovic perservered for the rest of the set and was able to break Nadal back when the Spaniard was serving for the set. The two players then traded breaks to take the set to a tiebreak. In the tiebreak, Nadal took care of his points on serve and was able to capitalize on some of Djokovic’s points. The Spaniard took the tiebreak and the opening set easily.

The second set started out well for Djokovic, but Nadal snuck off with a break in game six for 4-2. The loss of the first set and the second-set break was enough to take the wheels off of the Serb’s game. Nadal won the next two games to retake the title. The victory marks his 30th straight win on clay.


Championship Day
Singles Final
1 Rafael Nadal (ESP) def. 3 Novak Djokovic (SRB) 7-6(2) 6-2

Doubles Final
2 D. Nestor (CAN)/N. Zimonijic (SRB) def. 1 B. Bryan (USA)/M. Bryan (USA) 7-6(5) 6-3

(Images: AFP, Getty Images)