Nadal wins Monte-Carlo now for the French
A dominant Rafael Nadal has stormed to his sixth straight Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters title, defeating compatriot Fernando Verdasco 6-0, 6-1 in the final.
The win sealed Nadal’s 37th ATP title, and his 26th on clay, while reinforcing his dominance over his Spanish counterpart, taking Rafa’s head-to-head record against Verdasco to 10 wins from 10 matches.
The statistics bear out Nadal’s authority over the match: the 23-year-old won 63 of the 98 points played, created 14 break point chances and converted six of them, and saved the five break points his Davis Cup teammate earned on his own serve.
That’s not to say Verdasco didn’t push the second seed within points during the match, he did, but Nadal simply had all the answers in the 85-minute final.
In five matches for the tournament, Nadal was miserly in the games he conceded, dropping just 14 games and, even against his friend, was in no mood to be generous in the final.
In the solitary game Verdasco won, the 26-year-old was forced to save three match points before finally getting on the scoreboard and taking a 1-0 lead in the second set. Nadal won the following six and then the match.
“I love this tournament,” Nadal said after extending his winning streak at Monte-Carlo for another year. “[To] win here another time is a dream for me. The atmosphere here is unbelievable. I feel like home.”
As well the left-hander might, but until his loss against Robin Soderling during the 2009 French Open, his home-away-from-home was at Roland Garros where he’d won four straight Grand Slam crowns.
Had Nadal lost at Monte-Carlo, and his title-less streak edged closer to the 12-month mark, questions would have inevitably been asked about his chances of winning the French again in 2010, but after his victorious return to clay in Monte Carlo the question that should once again be posed is: can anyone defeat him at Roland Garros this year?
The answer has to be that on Rafa’s current form it will take something or someone very special to do so.
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