Rafael Nadal won the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell for the 12th time in his career on Sunday afternoon. This one, though, was unlike any other.
Nadal saved one championship point before outlasting Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-4, 6-7(6), 7-5 in an absolute thriller of a final. At three hours and 38 minutes, it is the longest ATP match of the year to date.
Heading into Sunday’s title match, Tsitsipas had won 17 sets in a row over the last two weeks. Of course, the Monte-Carlo champion had not run into anyone quite like the King of Clay during the hot streak. Facing a different kind of beast in the Barcelona final, Tsitsipas dropped the opening set from a break up. The Greek led 4-2 only to lose four games in a row.
The tables turned in set two, when it was Tsitsipas who mounted a comeback. Barcelona’s No. 2 seed faced two championship points while serving at 4-5, 15-40, but saved both of them to stay alive. After holding for 5-5 and eventually forcing a tiebreaker, Tsitsipas recovered from an early mini-break deficit to take the ‘breaker 8-6.
In the third, both men held serve through the first nine games without a single break point yielded. That suddenly changed with Nadal serving to stay in the match at 4-5. A break point for Tsitsipas was also a championship point, but the Spaniard fought off by winning an extended rally–which included one backhand off the net cord.
“I felt like I was close and I felt like there were opportunities that I had and for some reason I didn’t take (them),” Tsitsipas said. “I felt I could have pulled off better tennis today, but I’m happy that I [was] so close. I was a match point up…. That ball on the match point, I was literally two centimeters from winning that match.”
It was as close as the world No. 5 would get. Nadal held for 5-5, converted his fourth break point of the next game, and then served it out from break point down at 6-5.
“I think I never played a final like this in this tournament, so it means a lot to me against a player like him, [after what] he achieved in Monte-Carlo and [that he reached] the final here without losing a set,” Nadal explained. “It is an important victory for me. I think I have been increasing my level during the whole week and this victory confirms it.
“To have the trophy with me here at home means a lot, but at the same time for the future.”
It’s the past in Barcelona that is especially impressive. Nadal is now 66-4 lifetime a tournament where the main court is named none other than Pista Rafael Nadal. His 12 titles are the second-most he has won at a single tournament, trailing only his 13 at Roland Garros.
As for Tsitsipas, he is now a two-time runner-up in Barcelona–having previously lost to Nadal in the 2018 final. With a 9-1 record on clay in 2021 that includes his first-ever Masters 1000 title, the 22-year-old is looking like one of Nadal’s biggest French Open threats along with Novak Djokovic.
Tsitsipas could not have been a bigger threat on Sunday, despite falling just “centimeters” short.
“He’s a real competitor on the court,” he said of Nadal. “He hates to lose. He hates to lose more than anyone else. I haven’t seen anyone fight like this. He makes my life really difficult on court.”
To say it was difficult for both men on Sunday would be a gross understatement. Tsitsipas threw everything he had at Nadal and vice versa. The result was an epic struggle and perhaps the precursor to what could be a competitive, grueling, and wildly entertaining clay-court season.
nice one, Rafa
Congrats to Rafa! Winning here in Barcelona will be a confidence booster for our Rafa! Hope he continues this winning streak during the clay season (and even beyond!).
It isn’t so much that Rafa “hates to lose”. It’s that he LOVES to win! Rafa once said that winning a tournament – any tournament – was good for a week or two of happiness. I assume that after that he goes back to trying to win again.
It’s probably true that the Big Three have kept each other going, kept the tour interesting and challenging to them. But I think it’s also true that they love it.
Great win for Rafa….gut effort!!! Zv in Munich…..Bublik in Estoril
I was rooting for Sinner in the SF because I wanted Rafa to avoid the in-form Tsitsipas but in the end it’s far better to beat Tsists in the final for his confidence as Rafa is not yet at 100% in form.
To have overcome all the obstacles with his serve and UEs and win is all good.
Vamos!
You guys got lucky, that’s all I can say about that.
Down a break in both sets and a match point. Clearly, Tsitsipas has some psychological hurdles he needs to overcome before taking the reins.
To beat Nadal it’s mostly a mental battle. Tsitsipas has got his game pretty much sorted, now he has to go the next level mentally. He’s not quite there yet.
This is absurd. You don’t really watch tennis I guess, you just look at the score. You are definitely not watching too much clay court tennis since you don’t know that a break on clay does not mean much. Nadal had MPs before Tsitsipas, on the Greek’s serve, and failed to convert them – so Rafa has greater psychological hurdles or what? Stefanos failed to convert a MP on Nadal’s serve – it was a good serve, a good return and the Spaniard got a bit lucky with the net cord. The Greek did absolutely nothing wrong on his MP, it was simply out of his hands.
and you guys have a problem with ethical conduct. No wonder mass murders are a regular occurrence in your country. When you gang up on people and push them to their limits that’s what happens.
Good God! Are you saying that people disagreeing with you on a tennis site is justification for mass murder!!😂😂
And here I was crying because I am one of “them”. I Have thought about seeking asylum with an anon.
No, I’m saying that it is obvious to me from your behavior in this forum that you have cultural issues that result in mass shootings.
Oh, come on stop being so sensitive. I am sensitive too. But you are ripe for teasing. I will from here on respect your needs and Not bother you with my inferior mediocrity.
Ganging up on people, colluding and orchestrating attacks is not what i would call simply disagreeing with someone.
🙄 🤱🏼
So I am supposed to just accept your alternative truth? You’re saying that something black is actually white and complain about people “ganging up” to correct you in an “orchestrated” (by whom?) attack. I assume that you’re not from US but you think that everyone else writing here is from US? There are no mass murders in my country (BTW this is related to gun control more than anything else) and trust me people do contradict each other quite a lot. Disagreeing with arguments and without insulting is something normal and healthy. I think that you should have been challenged more often as a child. But hey, it’s not too late!
Something is not right with you dude. I recommend you seek help.
My final post in here for the foreseeable future.
Congratulations to Rafa on winning his 12th Barcelona Open trophy!!!!!!!!!!!!
🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆
🙌 🙌 🙌 🙌 🙌 🙌 🙌 🙌 🙌 🙌 🙌 🙌
I have nothing against Nadal; I just like to see other players live up their potential as well.
An update for Margot especially and also Elizabeth.
Dom has just said that he is back to playing really well in practice and feeling good physically.
So he will be a threat for RG.
I read before today he is playing Rome.
Not so good for Rafans!!
Rafa will crush Dominic at RG! But yes, I certainly like Dom back in the mix 🤗
Thank you, amy.
Thanks for the update Amy. “Practise” is all very well but “Matches” are what he really needs and without those I can’t see him being much of a threat at RG TBH. On hard courts possibly, depends on his injuries.
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Some Americans 👉liberal democrats are braindead, easily deceived/offended, can’t respect others opinions even though it’s obviously right, morally bankrupt m0r0ns no use trying to reason with this idi0ts.
@RC and others like her here are a perfect example of what a m0r0nic liberal writes/talks/reasons like.
Trumpster Moron is too frightened to use your own name.
You don’t meet Ricky’s standard. Do not use his name! and go away!!
It’s Stanley under one of his many thrilling guises Elizabeth. He has posted under that moniker before along with haha.
He just writes this stuff to get attention as otherwise everyone ignores him…I certainly do as a matter of course..
Okay, Amy. Now I know who he is. He should go use the tennis-x blog. There would be lots of “friends” on that blog.
I was guessing frenemies from that blog being him, LOL! Or, a few that used to post here. Stanley fits.
Btw Elizabeth, it’s a beautiful super moon 🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙tonight.
Just been watching it, it’s so beautiful…
Just was hearing about it from my neighbor! I have to see it. I’ll be waving to you, my friend.
Bitter about the election result? Very.Ignore. x
Thanks, it’s good to know I’m not the only one that sees it. It’s quite disturbing how irrational these people are, driven by agendas, biases and pure evil. Like a pack of primitive animals.
Someone has gone round the bend since the Orange Menace was sent packing!
Tsk tsk!