Following Andy Murray’s 6-4, 6-4 defeat of David Ferrer to begin round-robin action in Group Ilie Nastase, Rafael Nadal thrashed a disgruntled Stan Wawrinka 6-3, 6-2 on Monday night at the World Tour Finals. Murray (1:30) and Nadal (1:22) needed just two hours and 50 minutes combined to set up an intriguing showdown on Wednesday afternoon.
Wawrinka actually opened the nightcap with a break at love, but it was all downhill from there. The fourth-ranked Swiss got broken right right back–also at love–and never recovered.
A break point faced by Nadal at 0-1, 30-40 in the second set proved to be Wawrinka’s last gap. The Spaniard saved it with an on-the-run lob before holding for 1-1 two points later. Growing increasingly frustrated and unafraid to show it, Wawrinka melted down the rest of the way.
“Today I was bothered with everything,” the reigning French Open champion lamented. “Just everything went the wrong way. I don’t know. Was just a really bad day at the office. Bad behaving in the second set; going too fast–things that are not too great on myself.”
“I think I play well,” Nadal assessed. “I think I play a solid match. I had one bad game, the first one of the match. But then immediately I was playing well, no? For the moment I didn’t serve as good as I was doingin the previous days. But for the rest, all the shots worked well–backhand, forehand, good volleys, good smash…no missing the smashes today. So that’s good.”
“He’s playing better than a few months ago, that’s for sure,” Wawrinka added. “But still, for sure he’s not where he wants to be probably or where he was when he was No. 1 and really strong.”
As for Murray, he has never been No. 1 but needs only one more win this week to end the year No. 2 behind Novak Djokovic. In his victory over Ferrer, Murray battled back from a break down in the second and broke his opponent at 5-4 in each set.
“(In the) first couple of games my timing was a little bit off,” said Murray, who had been practicing on clay the previous week in advance of the upcoming Davis Cup final between Great Britain and Belgium. “But I got it back pretty quickly, which was pleasing. If you’re looking for a little bit of rhythm, he’s also a guy who makes you hit a lot of balls. The rallies are often quite long, so you can get into a rhythm against him. So that was good.”
“When the serve doesn’t work [against] top-10 players, it’s difficult (to) beat him,” explained Ferrer, who double-faulted eight times. “Anyway, in important moments he was better than me. He played more aggressive than me. [At] the end of both sets, I didn’t play so good.”
Topics: 02 Arena, 10sballs.com, Andy Murray, Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, David Ferrer, London tennis, Rafael Nadal, Ricky Dimon, Sports, Stan Wawrinka, Tennis News, World Tour Finals
#Nadal Downs #Wawrinka At The #ATPWorldTourFinals In #London, #Murray Takes Care Of #Ferrer by @Dimonator
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