It’s the Italian Open ATP 1000 men’s final in beautiful Italy. An exiting prospect as Roger Federer faced Nadal again.    

 

Fresh off winning in Madrid, Nadal’s continued dominating with tennis as beautiful as the pine trees and statues silhouetted against the warm blue sky of a packed stadium.

 

Playing against his arch rival and world number 2 Roger Federer, Nadal once again showed why he has earned the right to be called the “King of Clay. His quick 6-1, 6-2 win in 1 hour, 9 minutes extended his winning recorded to 15 of his last 17 matches on clay since returning from a 7 month injury break.

 

It was crushing, dominating tennis.  He had Federer scrambling from corner to corner like Berdych in the semi- finals a day earlier. Federer tried everything to counter Nadal’s relentless pressure and winners, but in doing so ended up hitting 4 times more unforced errors than Nadal, currently ranked 3 spots below him in the world rankings.

 

Nadal on the other hand dug his heels into his favourite surface and continued pounding the corners and hitting deadly accurate passing shots leaving Federer stranded at the net wondering what he did wrong. Nadal looked the winner from the first 3 games of the first set and never really looked back. It was a storming clay court performance and the match to watch for any players aspirating to make clay courts their favourite surface.

 

Federer will be relishing returning to his favourite hunting ground Wimbledon followed by another hard and indoor court season leading up to the World Championship finals in London.

 

I get a feeling he is happy letting the next generation take the lead in redefining the game as he did when he burst on the scene. But he still has the fire to make their work as difficult as possible while enjoying the game as much as he can.   

 

After 2 sublime clay court finals, Nadal goes into the French Open in 2 weeks clearly the favourite.

He must be riding high with confidence.

Will anyone stop him at the French? 

Enjoy your tennis till then.

Dedicated to improving your tennis game

Coach Rajesh