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Nadal Going After 9th Straight Monte Carlo Title Against Djokovic
Spain’s Rafael Nadal topped Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-3, 7-6 (7-3) on Saturday and will attempt to win his ninth consecutive Monte Carlo Masters title when he takes on world No. 1 Novak Djokovic in the final.
Nadal struggled to close out the match against the Frenchman, but he righted the ship in time to take the semifinal contest in one hour and 37 minutes for his 46th consecutive victory at this clay-court event.
The No. 3 seed led 6-3, 5-1 and then had three match points with Tsonga serving down 2-5, 0-40, but the Frenchman – who had been donating numerous points to the Spaniard with unforced errors – picked up his game to force a tiebreaker.
Nadal, however, stopped the bleeding in time to avoid a third set, clinching the contest on his fourth match point.
Next up in the final will be Djokovic, who appeared to be struggling with an ankle injury earlier in the tournament but comes into the final in blistering form after crushing Italy’s Fabio Fognini 6-2, 6-1 in Saturday afternoon’s second semifinal.
Djokovic is one win away from his first Monte Carlo title, having lost in the final to Nadal in 2009 and 2012.
The Monte Carlo Masters is one of the biggest clay-court tournaments on the men’s tennis calendar and a key tune-up event for the French Open, which gets underway next month.
Published in Latino Daily News
2013-04-20 16:15:08
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