On the very court recently named after him, Rafa Nadal made history again on Sunday, winning his tenth crown at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell.
The Spaniard completed the straight-sets victory (6-4, 6-1) with a repertoire of shots that simply overpowered his opponent, the world No. 9 Dominic Thiem. The Austrian knocked Britain's Andy Murray out of the tournament in a closely fought semi-final yesterday, but was unable to dominate the King of Clay in today's final.
To date, no other player has beaten Nadal in a final on this court at the Real Club Tennis Barcelona. Nadal was won every single final he has played in Barcelona, beating the likes of Juan Carlos Ferrero, Tommy Robredo, David Ferrer (four times), Nicolás Almagro and Kei Nishikori in the process.
In the first set of Sunday's final, Nadal faced (and saved) only one break point on his serve and managed to break the scoreline deadlock in the tenth game, sealing the set in 50 minutes. At the start of the second set, Nadal held his serve and then had two breaks points which he did not convert, but quickly imposed himself in the fourth game to break Thiem and take a 3-1 lead. From then on it was all Nadal and there was nothing more that Thiem could do to stop the power of the Mallorcan, who closed the set at 6-1 and the match.
"Winning in Barcelona again is very important for me and it's a dream tour start," said Rafa after finishing the match. "For me, to reach 10 in Barcelona, in front of the people of my club, was very important".
"I am very grateful to the Real Club de Tenis Barcelona-1899 and its partners for having named the court after me. It means a lot to me," an emotional Nadal added.
"Now is the time for me to enjoy these two weeks that are very special. I'll go home to Mallorca and have some rest, then start to think about Madrid and Rome,” said Nadal. “They're two very important events for me, so I'm excited about it."
