Rafael Nadal lets his hair down after defeating Roger Federer 6-1, 6-3 to win the Rome Masters title. It was Nadal’s 20th win over Federer in 30 meetings. (AFP)
AFP/Rome
Spain’s Rafael Nadal dominated his 30th meeting with Swiss rival Roger Federer to secure his seventh title in nine years at the Rome Masters yesterday.
Nadal’s 6-1, 6-3 triumph means he now leads Federer 20-10 in their series, with 13 of his wins coming on clay.
Nadal started the event seeded only fifth after losing many of his ATP ranking points during a seven-month absence from the sport.
However the Spaniard, winning his sixth title from eight finals so far this season, showed he is back to his best on his preferred surface with a masterclass which should boost his hopes of extending his record French Open tally to eight wins at Roland Garros next week.
Federer, the second seed, had overcome French upstart Benoit Paire in a late semi-final on Saturday to make his first final of the season. But despite winning the opening game on serve, the Swiss failed to really get a grip on the match. In all, the Swiss finished with 32 unforced errors to Nadal’s eight.
Nadal clinically broke the Swiss twice on his way to a 6-1 first set score inside 23 minutes.
Federer put up more resistance in the second but despite breaking back to 5-2 in the seventh game, and then holding serve to close to 5-3, Nadal brought up three championship points in the ninth game and required only one to seal the match with a cross-court forehand winner. Nadal now has 24 Masters titles in a career total of 56.
The Spaniard kept Federer on the defensive through their match lasting little more than an hour, with the fifth seed breaking on two of the first three Swiss service games.
“Congratulations to Rafa for backing (his title in) Madrid last week and winning a seventh here,” said Federer. “For me it was a good week, even if it was not my day. It was Rafa’s day. But I’m still pretty satisfied with how most of it went.”
Nadal now stands 20-10 over Federer after his second win of the season over the 17-time Grand Slam champion. Nadal’s title was the 56th of his career against 76 for Federer, who now stands 10-16 in clay finals.
He won his last trophy last August in Cincinnati over Novak Djokovic and has claimed at least one ATP title every season since 2001.