Rafael Nadal also lived up to his favourite role in the final of the ATP World Tour 500 tournament in Barcelona: The defending champion defeated Stefanos Tsitsipas in two sets and won his eleventh title in Catalonia’s capital.
77 ATP titles, 401 match victories on clay, 46 sets en suite won on this pad: Rafael Nadal has added another chapter to his incredible success story: With the 6:2 and 6:1 against 19-year-old Stefanos Tsitsipas, the world number one also won the title in the Catalan capital for the eleventh time. On a court named after him.
Nadal has won 18 matches in a row on clay since his defeat against Dominic Thiem in Rome in 2017 and has only played more than four games in one set: In the quarter-finals against Martin Klizan, which the Spaniard won 6:0 and 7:5.
With his 77th championship Nadal equaled John McEnroe in the eternal best list and is now in fourth place behind Jimmy Connors (109), Roger Federer (97) and Ivan Lendl (94).
For Tsitsipas, his entry into the final of the ATP World Tour 500 tournament was the greatest success of his career – especially as he only defeated players far ahead of him on the way with Diego Schwartzman, Albert Ramos Vinolas, Thiem and Pablo Carreno Busta in the semi-finals. And they know how to go to work on ashes.
As expected, there was nothing to inherit for the Greek against Nadal: The Mallorcan made use of his two break chances in the first set, but did not allow any possibility for a re-break of Tstsipas. After 39 minutes the first round was decided.
In the second set Nadal started with the double break, there were only ten minutes played. The Greek’s first 4-1 win in the second set was a bit more cheerful on this rather cool day in Barcelona. After 77 minutes Tsitsipas could fend off Nadal’s first two match points with two aces, but the third was pocketed into the net by the teenager with his backhand.
In the doubles match, Marc and Feliciano Lopez, who were defeated in the Davis Cup by German doubles Jan-Lennard Struff and Tim Pütz, won the final against Aisam Qureshi and Jean-Julien Rojer 7:6 (5) and 6:4.