Rafael Nadal of Spain (left) greets ExxonMobil Qatar Open champion Novak Djokovic of Serbia after the singles final at the Khalifa Tennis Complex in Doha on Saturday.
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Going into the final, Djokovic and Nadal were tied at 23 wins apiece in their career meetings, the most between any players in ATP Tour history.
Djokvic, who entered the final unscathed, without dropping a set, has now won his 60th ATP title.
Rafael Nadal advanced to the 99th final of his career on Friday at the Qatar Open.
In doing so, the Swiss also became the first player in the Open Era to reach hard-court finals in 17 consecutive seasons.
At 24-23, Djokovic holds a career edge against the Spaniard for the first time.
Djokovic saved a break point with a forehand crosscourt, working through a six-minute opener to hold with an ace.
Any hope of a typical comeback from Nadal was fully extinguished in the fifth game when Djokovic broke a second time to go 4-1 ahead.
Nadal fought hard to make the match competitive but was unable to control his service games, while Djokovic’s ability to change the direction of the ball from the baseline repeatedly caught the world No. 5 off-guard.
Djokovic won the Australian Open, Wimbledon and US Open a year ago and narrowly missed out on a calendar Grand Slam when losing to Stanislas Wawrinka in the French event at Roland Garros. “I played pretty much ideal tennis today”.
Nadal’s serve dominated throughout against a player who had knocked out the reigning champion and No. 4 seed David Ferrer in round one. One more time, the tennis fans will see one of the greatest rivalries and that too in the Qatar Open 2016 final to be played in Doha today.
Already he has gone further than he did in last year’s Qatar Open, which incredibly was the only tournament in the whole of 2015 in which he failed to make the final. The second set began in the same fashion as first, with Djokovic breaking the Spaniard’s serve in the opening game.
Rarely can the current world number five have been beaten so easily, although he tried to remain upbeat, saying he had made “a positive start to the season”. Mayer looked poise to force a third set but struggled with his serves in the 10th game of the set, allowing the top-seeded serve to recover from a 4-5 deficit.
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“This is exactly how I want to start the year, getting to the final in the first tournament of the year, against one of my biggest rivals”.
