Rafael Nadal on Sunday saved a championship point to beat Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-4, 6-7 (6/8), 7-5 and claim a 12th Barcelona Open title in the ATP’s longest match of this season.
The Spaniard secured his first title of the year and 87th of his career, denying Tsitsipas back-to-back triumphs following his maiden Masters 1000 title at Monte Carlo last week.
Nadal avenged his Australian Open quarter-final loss to Tsitsipas and return to second in the ATP rankings yesterday by climbing back above Daniil Medvedev after his marathon win in 3 hours, 38 minutes.
Photo: AFP
“It means a lot for me to play the final here and win,” Nadal said. “I improved my level during the week and this trophy means a lot.”
Nadal redeemed himself after a surprise quarter-final exit in Monte Carlo, but the three sets dropped en route to the title represented the most in any of his wins here.
No man has won more matches this year than Tsitsipas (26), but the 22-year-old has lost all seven finals at the ATP 500 level.
“Rafa [Rafael], bravo. How many is that, 28? Twenty-eight Barcelona titles is not bad,” Tsitsipas said, jokingly. “I’m really jealous, but you’ve earned it. You’re one of the biggest competitors in our sport — I’m sure you know that.”
Second seed Tsitsipas, a Roland Garros semi-finalist last season, had won all 17 sets on clay this season and entered the final unbeaten on the surface in nine matches.
The Greek built up a 4-2 lead in the opening set after breaking Nadal in the third game, but dropped his serve twice in succession as the 20-time Grand Slam champion hit back to win four games in a row.
Fifth-ranked Tsitsipas, who won just three games when the pair met in the 2018 final, again procured an early break in set two, but Nadal responded by leveling at 3-all.
Nadal failed to convert two match points as Tsitsipas clung on to hold when trailing 5-4, with the Spaniard saving three break points in the next game.
Nadal took a 4-2 lead in the tiebreak, but the momentum swung back toward Tsitsipas as he won four straight points, blowing two set points before forcing a decider at the third attempt after a double fault from his opponent.
The third set went on serve without a single break opportunity until Tsitsipas edged to within a point of the title, with Nadal on the ropes serving at 4-5.
However, Nadal survived and finally converted his fourth break chance in the following game, snuffing out a Tsitsipas break point in the final game before clinching his 61st clay-court title.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier