When Novak Djokovic did WingTennis for Head racquets he said “Nothing can stop me now! Nothing!” and he was right. Not even world number one Rafael Nadal, who has played better this week than he did last week, could stop Nole from winning the Miami Masters crown – his fourth consecutive tournament win.
Djokovic has now beaten Federer three times and Nadal twice this season alone. It was a high quality final that Djokovic won 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 continuing his unbeaten run in the 2011 season. You’d have to think it was nice for Novak to beat Rafa in such a tight match after crushing disappointment in a similar match two years ago in Madrid (Nole has openly admitted that loss took him some months to recover from).
“As I said on the court, it was one of the closest and best finals that I have played ever.
I think it was very high level of tennis today. I think everybody enjoyed, even us playing. It was very close, and up to the last stroke we really didn’t know which way it’s going to go.”
Usually marathon man Rafael Nadal said he was tired at the end of the match – perhaps not the best sign heading into the clay season where he’s under pressure to defend Monte Carlo, Rome, Madrid and Roland Garros before Wimbledon.
“I was very tired at the end. Think I played a little bit better the beginning of last week’s final.
I was there fighting until the last point… nothing left in my body right now, so that’s the sport. I love these kinds of matches.”
Djokovic has now said his goal is to be number one and it sounds like Rafa thinks its going to be happening in the very near future “I don’t feel [like] he’s breathing on my neck… but he won two tournaments in a row right now, very big tournaments, [as well as] one Grand Slam. Normal thing is he will be No. 1 in the next month, month and a half, two months. I don’t know. Depends on my results on clay.”
W
hile Novak has never beaten Rafa on clay he has come close so it will be an interesting clay court season. If Rafa successfully defends Monte Carlo (and he came out in blistering form last year) it will be the seventh consecutive year he has won the tournament. “First tournament of clay is always important… I won six in a row. I going to try my best for the seventh but know how difficult every tournament is. Hopefully I’m going to be playing well at this tournament.”
In winning both Indian Wells and Miami Novak has now joined an elite group of 8 men to do so, last done by Federer in 2006.
