Nadal defeats Thiem to claim fifth Madrid Masters crown

TIL Desk Sports/ Spanish No.1 Rafael Nadal claimed his fifth Mutua Madrid Open title with a 7-6 (10), 6-4 win over eighth seeded Dominic Thiem here. Sunday’s win also means that Nadal has now won 30 ATP Masters 1000 Series titles in his long career, more than anyone who is currently playing.

The first set saw Thiem try and adopt an attacking attitude against Nadal, who had only recently defeated him in Barcelona. That attitude saw him take an early service break to silence the partisan crowd in Madrid, but Nadal was able to break back in the sixth game as Thiem paid for his aggression with too many unforced errors.

The first set went to a tie break in which Nadal always looked to be on top, but it was not until the fifth time of asking that he was able to win the decisive point. Nadal then broke immediately at the start of the second set and the games went with serve until the ninth game when Nadal had two Championship points on Thiem’s serve.