Madrid: Rafael Nadal won his fifth title since returning from a knee injury by beating Stanislas Wawrinka 6-2, 6-4 on Sunday for the Madrid Open championship.
Cheered on by the home crowd at the Caja Magica, the fifth-ranked Nadal cruised to his 55th career title and extended his head-to-head record with the Swiss to 9-0.
Nadal grabbed the first set in just over half an hour and closed out the second after Wawrinka put up more of a fight.
It was Nadal's seventh straight final since recovering from a nagging case of tendinitis in his left knee that sidelined him for seven months....
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09:40 PM, May 12, 2013
Madrid: Defending champion Serena Williams beat Maria Sharapova 6-1, 6-4 in the final of the Madrid Open on Sunday to both retain her No. 1 ranking and collect her 50th career title. With the top ranking at stake, Williams stormed out to an early lead as Sharapova struggled with her serve. The second-ranked Russian briefly recovered her poise in the second set, but Williams' form never dipped as she eased...
06:34 PM, May 12, 2013
Madrid: Rafael Nadal reached his seventh consecutive final since returning from a knee injury, brushing aside wild-card entry Pablo Andujar 6-0, 6-4 at the Madrid Open on Saturday. Nadal had little trouble extending his winning streak in clay-court semi-finals to 46 matches, quickly finishing his over-matched countryman after winning the first six games. Nadal can win his fifth title since coming back from seven-month layoff healing his left knee. "I...
10:01 PM, May 11, 2013
Madrid: Andy Murray complained he has been failing to take his chances but said his clay season was "going in the right direction" following the failure of his latest bid for a maiden title on his least favoured surface. Murray lost 7-6, 6-4 to Czech sixth seed Tomas Berdych in the Madrid Open quarter-finals on Friday but will at least have the consolation of climbing above Roger Federer to number...
08:27 PM, May 11, 2013
Madrid: Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova will play for the No. 1 ranking and the Madrid Open title after winning semifinals in straight sets Saturday. The top-ranked Williams will have a chance to win her 50th title after beating Sara Errani of Italy 7-5, 6-2. No. 2 Sharapova got her 500th win at all levels after defeating Ana Ivanovic 6-4, 6-3. Sharapova has won all 10 sets she has played...
05:06 PM, May 11, 2013
Madrid: Indian Challenge ended at the Madrid Open with the straight set defeat of Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna at the hands of unseeded team of Jeremy Chardy and Lukas Kubot, here. An off-colour Indian team squandered all the six points it earned in the second set to suffer a 2-6 4-6 defeat against the French-Polish combo in the quarter-finals of the euro 4,303,867 clay court tournament. The Indians could...
10:42 AM, May 11, 2013
Madrid: Rafael Nadal fought back to beat David Ferrer 4-6, 7-6 (3), 6-0 in Friday's quarter-finals of the Madrid Open, keeping alive his bid to reach a seventh straight final since returning from injury. In a meeting of Spain's top ranked players, Ferrer's baseline game on the red clay almost proved too much for the fifth-seeded Nadal. But Nadal held on to force a third set and won six straight...
10:02 PM, May 10, 2013
Madrid: Top-ranked Serena Williams outlasted Anabel Medina Garrigues 6-3, 0-6, 7-5 to reach the Madrid Open semi-finals on Friday. Williams appeared to wear down against the scrappy Spaniard on the red clay court, and after getting blanked in the second set she fell behind 4-2 in the decider. But the defending champion rallied back to break Medina Garrigues' serve twice to move on. "It was definitely a battle," Williams said....
05:36 PM, May 10, 2013
Madrid: The Indian pair of Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna entered the quarter-finals of the men's doubles event while Leander Paes and Sania Mirza made exit with their respective partners at the Madrid Open, on Thursday. The sixth-seeded pair of Bhupathi and Bopanna defeated Argentine pair of Juan Monaco and Horacio Zeballos 6-3 3-6 10-5 in a hard-fough contest to make it to the last eight of the competition, which...
10:57 AM, May 10, 2013
Madrid: Roger Federer vowed to get straight back on the practice court after the world number two was dumped out in the third round of the Madrid Open by Japan's Kei Nishikori on Thursday. Defending champion at the clay Masters event in the Spanish capital, Federer was playing his first tournament after a seven-week rest following defeat to Rafael Nadal in the quarter-finals at Indian Wells. The 31-year-old Swiss is...
09:15 AM, May 10, 2013
Madrid: Second-ranked Roger Federer was ousted by Kei Nishikori of Japan 6-4, 1-6, 6-2 in the third round of the Madrid Open on Thursday. After recovering from Nishikori's strong start, it looked like Federer found his stride after roaring back in the second set. But Nishikori reasserted his ground game in the decider after breaking the defending champion for a 3-1 advantage and held on for the surprising victory to...
10:38 PM, May 09, 2013
Madrid : Rafael Nadal cruised into the Madrid Open quarterfinals with a 6-2, 6-3 victory Thursday over Mikhail Youzhny that featured an array of creative shots. Top-ranked Serena Williams and No. 2 Maria Sharapova also reached the quarterfinals in straight sets. Having already established control by winning Youzhny's second service game, Nadal kept a point going with a deft no-look backhand flick before nailing a winner down the line to...
07:01 PM, May 09, 2013
Madrid: Sania Mirza and her American pair Bethanie Mattek-Sands made an early exit from the Madrid Open after losing their second round match in straight sets to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Lucie Safarova on Thursday. The fifth seed Indo-American pair lost 5-7 1-6 to the unseeded Russian-Czech pair in one hour and 10 minutes in the second round of the euro 4,033,254 clay court event. Sania and Bethanie could convert just...
04:06 PM, May 09, 2013
Madrid: Rafael Nadal avoided a similar fate to beaten world number one Novak Djokovic when he dismissed French young gun Benoit Paire 6-3, 6-4 to claim a place in the third round of the Madrid Open on Wednesday. Serb Djokovic fell to another promising youngster, Bulgaria's Grigor Dimitrov, in the second round of the Masters event on Tuesday but Nadal showed why he has the best record on clay in...
11:03 PM, May 08, 2013
Madrid: Ekaterina Makarova of Russia ousted third-seeded Victoria Azarenka 1-6, 6-2, 6-3 on Wednesday to reach the third round of the Madrid Open. Azarenka, runner-up in Madrid the past two years, lost her temper, broke her racket and argued with the chair umpire. The Belarusian double-faulted five times and got in only just over half of her first serves, compared to a 60 per cent first-serve accuracy for the 24-ranked...
06:58 PM, May 08, 2013
Madrid: Novak Djokovic was dumped out of the Madrid Open in the second round on Tuesday when he went over on his ankle and incurred the wrath of the locals on the way to a shock 7-6 6-7 6-3 reverse to Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov. The world number one, who had a bye in the opening round, was already a break down to the unseeded 21-year-old in the second set when...
08:06 AM, May 08, 2013
Madrid: Roger Federer looked as sharp as ever in his first match following a two-month layoff as he beat Czech Radek Stepanek 6-3, 6-3 at the Madrid Open on Tuesday. The Swiss chose an eye-catching mint-green shirt for his first match since losing to Rafa Nadal at the Indian Wells Masters in March and secured a 12th victory over Stepanek in 14 meetings. The victory set up a possible third-round...
11:30 PM, May 07, 2013
Madrid: World number one and defending champion Serena Williams continued her serene progress at the Madrid Open tennis when she eased past Spanish wild card Lourdes Dominguez Lino 6-2, 7-5 in the second round on Tuesday. Chasing a fourth title of the year and the 50th of her career, Williams had too much power for the slightly-built Dominguez Lino, who nonetheless managed to unsettle her illustrious opponent with some clever...
08:48 PM, May 07, 2013
Madrid: Fifth seeds Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sania Mirza advanced to the next round at the Mutua Madrid Open with a three-set win over Daniela Hantuchova and Anabel Medina Garrigues. The Indo-American pair have been in terrific form this year, winning Premier-level titles in Brisbane and Dubai and finishing runners-up in Stuttgart. The duo were down a break in the first set at 4-3, 5-4 and 6-5 yet broke serve each...
07:36 PM, May 07, 2013
Madrid: Milos Raonic said he needed to iron out "crucial mistakes" after the Canadian 12th seed squeaked past former world number three Nikolay Davydenko 7-5, 7-6 in the opening round of the Madrid Open on Monday. Raonic, at 22 almost 10 years younger than his unseeded Russian opponent, managed one break of the Davydenko serve to secure the first set and edged the second-set tiebreak 7-5 to set up a...
11:59 AM, May 07, 2013
