Miami – final
(2)Novak Djokovic d. (1)Rafael Nadal 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(4) [3:21 h]
Two weeks after a final at Indian Wells, Nadal and Djokovic, two best players in the world, met again in the final. Nadal stung first, broke Djokovic’s serve in the 3rd game of the 1st set – the Serb was broken for the first time in Miami after 41 consecutive games held! As it happens quite often, after such a long streak a player loses his serve twice in a row and Djokovic was broken again in the 5th game playing awful tennis. Nadal led 5:1, but Djokovic cut it to 4:5* (30/15) – in that important moment, Nadal obtained an easy point with a service winner and moment later clinched the 1st set. In the 3rd game of the 2nd set they both had their unusual outbursts – D’Joke threw his racquet, Rafa hit with his left fist strings of his own. The Serb needed several ‘deuces’ in that game to build a 3:0 lead. He could produce a double break but Nadal escaped and after two sets they experienced deja vu – exactly the same scoreline like in the Indian Wells final! This time the 3rd set was different than two weeks ago, it was a typical dogfight, both gave everything, holding service games comfortably. Nadal led 6:5* (30/15), so was only two points away from victory – Djokovic fired a service winner, in the following point he made a forehand mis-hit but the ball landed on the line thus instead of a match point for Nadal, Djokovic had a game point. In the deciding tie-break, Nadal led 2:1 with two serves to come – Djokovic played one of the best rallies of the final then, a point which destroyed the Spaniard physically for a few minutes. The Serb kissed his right fist after a forehand winner down the line, which gave him four match points. Nadal saved two of them, but at the third chance, Djokovic served intelligently on Nadal’s backhand and took advantage of high backhand return, finishing the match with diagonal forehand winner. The match lasted 3 hours 21 minutes which is the longest Masters 1000 “the best of three” final in history. Djokovic has extended his amazing streak to 26 matches won in a row! He becomes the seventh player to win back-to-back titles in the Indian Wells-Miami combo. Here is a list of those players (in parentheses win/loss set record):
1991: Jim Courier (25-5)
1992: Michael Chang (25-5)
1994: Pete Sampras (23-6)
1998: Marcelo Rios (23-2)
2001: Andre Agassi (24-3)
2005: Roger Federer (26-4)
2006: Roger Federer (26-2)
2011: Novak Djokovic (24-3)
Just for the third time, two players met in the finals of big American tournaments the same year held in March, previously it happened in 1990 (Andre Agassi & Stefan Edberg) and 1995 (Agassi & Pete Sampras), in both cases the players shared titles. Djokovic said about his 22nd title (seven ‘Masters 1000’ titles): “It was such a close match. To win against the No. 1 player of the world in a tie-break in the third set, it’s just incredible. This is one of the best matches I’ve played in a while. I was able to find my rhythm at the end of the first set, and then throughout the whole second and third set I played quite well, especially on my service games.”
Doubles final:
(3)Mahesh Bhupathi/Leander Paes d. (2)Max Mirnyi/Daniel Nestor 6-7(5), 6-2, [10-5]
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This is Novak’s 7th Masters title though. 🙂 IW(2)/Miami(2)/Rome/Montreal/Bercy
Thx, I overlooked somehow Montreal 😀