Rafael Nadal

Five time Monte Carlo winner Rafael Nadal reached his second final of the year after beating countryman David Ferrer 6-2, 6-3. Nadal stretched his winning streak to 31 at the principality of Monte Carlo and now leads 10-3 in career head to head against Ferrer.

Nadal faced some problems early on serve as he had to save a breakpoint in his first service game. He broke in the very next game to gain the upper hand early in the match. Nadal broke twice and then saved one more breakpoint to lead 5-1 and go on to win the first set at 6-2 holding serve at love.

There were some famous VIP guests who included former Renault team boss Flavio Briatore, former Monte Carlo winner Ilie Nastase and Boris Becker. There were seen in the company of Prince Albert.

In the second set Ferrer hit his foot in frustration with his racquet after being forced into an error. Nadal broke Ferrer’s serve in the next game but that lead was short lived as he dropped serve. However Nadal regained the initiative with another break of serve. Nadal served for the match at 5-2 but was broken. Nadal was a bit nervous about the fact that he had lost his last two semi finals at Indian Wells and Miami after having winning chances in both matches.

Nadal won the match in 76 minutes and will try to end his title winless streak for 11 months. His last title came at Rome in 2009. Nadal had this to say about his quality of play, “I think I played very, very complete match.”

Sixth seed Fernando Verdasco will next face Nadal after beating top seeded Novak Djokovic 6-2, 6-2 in the semi final. Verdasco won the first set 6-2 breaking Djokovic’s serve twice and played some of his best tennis of the year doing so.

There were some spectacular rallies in the match as both players played well. Djokovic showed his fighting and defensive abilities in the second set as well. He saved two break points at 1-1 but couldn’t fight off the third as Verdasco proved unrelenting in his ground shots.

Verdasco shook off some nerves to hold to 4-2 and then was gifted some errors from Djokovic as he closed out the match at 6-2. Verdasco needs to forget his winless record against Nadal to do well in the final which will be his first at a Masters 1000 tournament.

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