Andy Murray was unable to defend his Madrid Open crown as Novak Djokovic beat him 6-2, 3-6, 6-3. Murray saved 11 break points to win a rematch of last year’s final.
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Djokovic and Murray have met 31 times in their careers, with the Serbian dominating with 22 wins against 9 losses.
The defeat means that the 28-year-old Scots loses his world number two ranking to Roger Federer on Monday, when the new ranking releases.
Novak Djokovic was thrilled to get back to winning ways by claiming yet another Masters 1000 title in Madrid, after a rare blip in an otherwise sparkling season.
“It was a better win for me this year than last year”, Murray said. “I’ve had a lot of success here the last two years”.
Meanwhile, World number one Novak Djokovic said he needed all of his instinct to progress against Milos Raonic in the Madrid Open quarter-finals. “In general, he was a little bit better than me”, Nadal said, “and we have to congratulate him for his victory and recognise that he played better than me in the important moments”.
Murray would hold his nerve from there, with the Briton running out the eventual 6-3 victor to put himself right back in contention for this title.
Djokovic now goes on to face Andy Murray in the final after the Brit topped home favorite Rafael Nadal 7-5, 6-4 in the other semifinal. “I was at a middling level which wasn’t enough to beat Murray”.
However, the top seed bounced back to take the breaker 7-4 and set up his first meeting with Murray in a Masters series final on clay.
The defending champion had a lowly 54% first serves in but still managed to maneuver the contest his way against the Spaniard who was on a 13-match winning streak.
Djokovic was strong in the first set and third set as he controlled the match by constantly varying his game and never allowing Murray to settle into any sort of rhythm.
“I think Kei has started exceptionally well so he obviously knows what his game plan is and what he wanted to do, and he started executing very efficiently from the very first point”, said Djokovic.
Murray is still expected to be considered one of the main favourites at the French Open, which begins in two weeks.
“There were a couple of close games in the second set… and I made some unforced errors and double faults in the game when I dropped my serve”.
That should be encouragement for Djokovic, who beat Nishikori 6-3, 7-6 in the evening session to set up a 15th career final against Murray.
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Djokovic broke in the opening game and quickly raced further ahead, his superiority such that the Scot, recently serving with added speed and bite after making technical adjustments to his delivery, could win only 17% of points on his second serve during a first set that flashed by in half an hour.
