Rafael Nadal Defeats David Ferrer in Rome Masters tennis tournament
The second master series 1000 event on clay this year come to it an end as the king of clay, Rafael Nadal defeated his countrymen and Davis cup partner David Ferrer. In Rome on Sunday, May 2, 2010. Nadal won 7-5, 6-2. This event, like its predecessors was full of surprises, upsets and some display of great tennis. While the likes of Rafa and Djokovic made it to the finals, Murrey and federer fell early. The eastern European’s have dominated this surface after the demise of the South American’s like Coria and Gostavo Kuerton.
One big highlight of this tournament was the Latvian Earnests Gulbis, who after upsetting the likes of Federer and Lopez advanced to the semi finals against the king of clay himself. It was his bad luck that he met Nadal in probably the best form of his career. Just after winning the Monte Carlo open 6 times in a row, he was going for his 5th here in Rome but faith had something else in store.
Starting nervously in the beginning of the big match Gulbis couldn’t find his range as he lost his serve early in the first set. But as the match matured so did his game. Losing the first set, he came out all guns blazing in the second, and straight away claimed the Nadal serve, which by the way, was broken for the first time in the whole tournament (one can imagine the form he was in). Holding his own service games throughout the rest of the set he leveled the match at one set each. Nadal was surely pushed to the wall after this come back as he had not seen such defiance by any player this season. Playing his heart out, the young Latvian was going for everything Nadal presented in his way, and surprisingly was making the most of it.
Nadal, the champion he is, used all his skill, muscle and experience in the third set and weathered the Latvian Storm to come good in the end, with just one break of the serve dividing the two players. It was surprising to see that Gulbis lost the match, Even though he had hit 50 clean winners in the match, this fact surely shows the class Nadal is in right now; a warning signal for the other contenders of the circuit.
In the other semi final, the two Spaniards were competing for the final, which was now to be an all Spaniard affair. David Ferrer and Fernando Verdasco were competing, once again, against each other like they did just a few days back in the Barcelona open. It was Verdasco’s day then, as he was in impeccable form throughout the season, but this time around the hard work on clay had finally taken its toll on the left hander. His epic three setter battle against the world number two Novak Djokovic in the quarter finals was affecting his performance in this match. He looked fatigued and it was evident from his game as well. Ferrer took full advantage of the opportunity and finished of the match in straight sets.
This set up a battle of the team mates in the final with the odds stacked highly in the Favor of Nadal as his head to head record against ferrer is 10 wins to 3 losses up till now. The odds makers once again were right on the money and Nadal defeated David Ferrer in two straight sets and lifted his both arms in the air (pictured above).
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