Champions

Champions

Nadal beats Federer to win 6th French Open title

Paris. King of clay Rafael Nadal defeated Roger Federer 7-5, 7-6 (7/3), 5-7, 6-1 in a hard fought match to win his 6th French Open title to equal Bjorn Borg record. This was also the 10th overall grand slam title for the Spaniard. The epic clash between the world number one and number three lasted for 3 hours 40 minutes.

Nadal and Federer are arguably the best players the game had ever seen. They have met 25 times and Nadal has managed to win 17 of them, 4 of them coming at Roland Garros. Top seeded Nadal needed to win this match to prevent Djokowich to outplace him, but the Spaniard did just what the doctor has ordered.

Nadal was not at his best at the beginning and Federer raced to 3-0, soon it was set point for Federer with Nadal serving at 5-2, but a drop shot landed just wide and the master of clay bounced back to win the set 7-5.

The next set was a hard fought one, with pendulum swinging every now and then. Even rain interrupted the match for a while. But eventually when the game resumed Nadal clinched the second set by winning the tie breaker 7-3.

It looked it was all over in the third set when Federer was broken to love to slip 4-2 down but he fought back to trail 3-4. He then successfully served to stay in the match in the 10th game, broke for 6-5 and finally won the set 7-5 amidst a huge roar from the crowd.

It looked as if Federer can stage a comeback but Nadal then shut all doors on him, he saved two break points in the opening game of the fourth set, then broke to love for a 3-1 lead and held for 4-1. Soon he had three match points, and the game was over when Federer went long with a forehand.

No comments:

Post a Comment