The top seeded pair took just an hour and 10 minutes to beat German wild card pair of Angelique Kerber, who lost the women’s singles final earlier in the day to Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, and Andrea Petkovic 7-5, 6-1 at the Pat Rafter Arena.
Advertisement
Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal will break their 23-23 head-to-head record when they meet for the 47th time in the Qatar Open final Saturday.
The Serbian lifted three of the four Grand Slam titles, and even in the one he didn’t win he still reached the final, ending Nadal’s domination of the French Open along the way.
Having lost to Djokovic in last year’s final at Melbourne Park and in the 2011 and 2013 title deciders, world number two Murray was under few illusions as to the scale of the task.
Rafael Nadal advanced to the 99th final of his career on Friday at the Qatar Open.
Marchenko kicked off the tournament with a straight-set win against fourth seed David Ferrer, which was followed by another comfortable 6-4, 6-2 victory against Teymuraz Gabashvili.
But now the world number one turns his attention to Melbourne and the Australian Open, the season’s opening Grand Slam. For Nadal, meanwhile, that emphatic loss at Roland Garros was just one of a number of low points in what was the most disappointing year for the Spaniard since he first burst onto the tour as a teenage prodigy over a decade ago.
If Djokovic dominates like he did previous year, and Nadal’s struggles continue, I would not be at all surprised to see him surpass all these legends past and present come the season’s end.
Against Nadal, the Serb produced 30 winners, engineered seven break points and faced only one himself, which he saved.
He told reporters in Spanish that Djokovic’s play had been “stratospheric”.
“Normally I’m here for two weeks before the Aussie Open, but I [have] been here for three weeks [to] try and help a bit with acclimatisation and get over the jet lag”. Djokovic has won nine of their last 10 matches. Djokovic’s victor output exceeded the total points Nadal won (13) in the first set. I am playing well, won four matches here and am in the final.
Despite his final defeat, the week in Qatar represented a good start to the year for Nadal and he hopes to be at a level in 2016 to give Djokovic a closer battle.
Advertisement
“The week that I have before the Australian Open starts will be very useful for me because I have played a lot, trained very hard, played a great five matches here. And when something like this happens, the only thing you can do is applaud and congratulate him”, the Spaniard added.
