Murray and Nadal make perfect starts

Posted by Steve Carter
2
Nov 18, 2015
137 Views

Former Wimbledon champions Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal both made winning starts at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals at the O2 Arena, London, on Monday. The pair will be hoping to reclaim the Wimbledon title in 2016, where we will be providing the best Wimbledon hospitality packages and Wimbledon debenture tickets at SW19.

Murray is now just one victory away from securing the end of year No. 2 spot in the Emirates ATP Rankings after he defeated Spaniard David Ferrer. It was the Scotsman’s fifth straight win over the 2007 finalist in Group IlieNastase.

The first set was a fascinating battle with both players exchanging powerful shots, in the eighth game Murray missed a crucial chance to break the Ferrer serve, but he failed to convert three break points. But in the 10th game Murray finally made the crucial breakthrough as he broke Ferrer and sealed the opening set in 47 minutes, 6-4.

In the second set Ferrer made a blistering start and led 2-0, but Murray showed great fighting spirit and fought his way back into the set with some superb shots. Murray clinched his 69th match win of the year by breaking Ferrer for a third time to end the 90-minute encounter.

"It was a tough match with a lot of long rallies," said Murray. "He fought hard right to the end and made it extremely difficult.

"He didn't serve as well as he can and I played a bit better at the end of both sets, and that got me the win."

Link for quote (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/34835720)

Rafael Nadal made a similarly strong start to his campaign with a 6-3 6-2 over French Open champion Stan Wawrinka. It marked their second FedEx ATP Head2Head encounter in less than two weeks, Wawrinka having claimed their quarter-final clash at the BNP Paribas Masters in a pair of tie-break sets 7-6(8), 7-6(7).

In the opening set both players were nervy and were broken to love, with both struggling to establish a dominant first serve. But in the Nadal eventually started and a made a game-changing break of serve at 5-3 to close out in the set in 40 minutes.

Nadal was in dominant form and a superb pair of breaks put him 5-1 ahead, Wawrinka was unable to make a miraculous recovery and Nadal sealed his straight-sets victory. The perfect start.

"I think I played a solid match," said Nadal, who registered 18 winners to 12 unforced errors. "I had one bad game, the first one of the match. But then immediately I was playing well. I played the way that I wanted to play. I played aggressive. I played with not many mistakes."

“When something went wrong today, everything went wrong,” said Wawrinka, who amassed 35 unforced errors in the loss. “It was just a really bad day at the office.”

Link for quote (http://www.atpworldtour.com/en/news/nadal-surges-ahead-in-london)

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