In the process, Djokovic won his sixth consecutive ATP World Tour title and became the 10th player to achieve the 60-titles milestone.
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Nadal will have to play a lot better than Djokovic if he wants to win the game. By the end of the contest, such theories had been debunked.
Nadal won 100 per cent of all his first service points in the first set, 89 per cent overall and gave up only one break point, which he held.
Serbia’s Novak Djokovic celebrates victory over Rafael Nadal in the final of the Qatar Open in Doha, Qatar.
Despite that, he maintains he can do well in Melbourne, where he has won once, in 2009, beating Federer in the final. Nadal took an hour and 17 minutes to win 6-3, 6-4. This was a gruelling, attritional battle on the clay of the Caja Magica where Nadal delighted the home fans by digging deep to emerge victorious.
Nadal and Djokovic have a 23-23 H2H record in ATP with Djokovic winning the last 4 matches between the two. Obviously knowing that I can play a match makes me feel relieved a bit, but it’s a little issue that has been there for most of this week. “I played like I wanted to”.
The Serbian was phenomenal throughout 2015, winning three of the four Grand Slam titles, and will be looking to go one better this year.
Djokovic broke Nadal’s serve twice in each set, and saved the one break point he faced in the opening game of the match.
Djokovic has been the man of the honor as he has beaten Nadal in some of the last matches. It would have been 40-0 had the left-hander not won a disputed line call. He outpaced Nadal on both forehand and backhand wings, cranking up winners that, at times, left the Spaniard rooted to the spot. “It always represents a great challenge to play Nadal because of the fact that we have played so many times for the trophies”.
The British world no. 2 is a $7.00 favourite to capture an elusive Australian Open championship over the next fortnight.
Federer stopped Raonic in three sets in Brisbane in the final past year. Nadal has dropped two sets but has looked sharp this tournament. The Spaniard, already a seven-time champion at Roland Garros, served for the match at 6-5 in the fourth but lost his serve and the resultant tie-break.
Andy Murray says he may need number one Novak Djokovic’s form to dip to have a chance of victory in the Australian Open, which starts next week.
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“Last year he [Djokovic] had an incredible year, [reaching the] final of every tournament bar one throughout the year which is extremely hard to do”.
