Paris: Rafael Nadal produced a flawless exhibition of claycourt tennis to demolish world No 1 Roger Federer 6-1, 6-3, 6-0 on Sunday and win his fourth straight French Open title. The Spaniard was at his relentless best as he tore Federer apart in one hour, 48 minutes to deny the Swiss a career Grand Slam. By doing so, the Spaniard equalled Bjorn Borg’s feat of four consecutive titles at Roland Garros. The Swiss raised himself in the second set and had a break point at 3-3, but Nadal slammed the door shut and crushed a hapless Federer in the third to clinch the title without losing a set. The shattering defeat for the Swiss star meant that he has now lost 11 times in 17 meetings with the 22-year-old Spaniard and nine times out of 10 on clay. The Spaniard also topped the winners tally, hitting 46 to Federer’s 31 leaving the Swiss to admit that his rival, who didn’t drop a set in the entire tournament, is getting better all the time.
Ana claimed her maiden grand slam
Serbia’s Ana Ivanovic won the French Open on Saturday, her first Grand Slam title,by ending Dinara Safina’s heroic run to the final and crowning her elevation to the world number one spot in style. Ivanovic won 6-4, 6-3 as Russian 13th seed Safina saw her hopes of joining big brother Marat as a Grand Slam champion dashed. For the second seeded pin-up, it was third time lucky after she had lost both her previous major finals - to Justine Henin here 12 months ago and Maria Sharapova at the Australian Open in January. The Russian, who had spent two more hours than Ivanovic getting to the title match, endured a nerve-wracking start to the final being broken twice to quickly slip 1-4 down before fighting back to 4-4 with two breaks of her own. A year ago, Ivanovic suffered numbing stagefright on her Grand Slam final debut winning just three games against fourtime winner Henin. With the recently-retired world number one now looking on from the VIP enclosure on Court Philippe Chatrier, Ivanovic stopped the rot to break back to lead 5-4. The 20-year-old wasted a first set point but wrapped up the opener after 45 minutes when Safina, pinned behind the baseline, slapped a backhand high and long. Ivanovic, finding depth and power with her confident, accurate groundstrokes, broke a lacklustre Safina again to take a 2-1 lead in the second set which became 3-1 thanks to a love service game. She held another shaky service to lead 4-2 while Safina overcame her fourth and fifth double faults of the match to hold in the seventh game. But the battling Russian finally ran out of steam in the ninth game when she handed her opponent three match points with the title gratefully gobbled up when an Ivanovic return died at her feet after 1hr 38mins on court.
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