At the Argentina Open on Saturday, top seed Rafael Nadal made a stuttering start against local favorite Carlocq Berlocq in the semifinals. With his service failing him, Nadal played at a far lower level and allowed the set to go to the tiebreak, Berlocq was just about to pocket the first set, when he raced away to a 6-1 lead in the tiebreak. But Nadal produced some vintage tennis to bounce back by reeling off eight out of nine straight points and won the first set 7-6. In the second set too, Nadal lost his opening service game to fall behind the Argentinian. But again, the Spaniard brought out his old game and won six games on the trot to finish the match 7-6, 6-2. For the title clash, Nadal will take on another Argentinian Juan Monaco, who had a tough 3-set battle against Spaniard Nicolas Almagro in the other semifinal. Monaco’s triumph was largely attributed to saving 12 out of 15 break points that he faced. The Argentine began well and easily took the first set but Almagro fought back in the second set, denied double match points to Monaco and forced a decider. In the final set too, Monaco went down 0-40 while serving for the match at 5-4. Then he drew on his reserves to finish the match 6-3, 6-7, 6-4 in 2 hours 28 minutes. Monaco thus earned the right of playing against Rafael Nadal in Sunday’s final. The men’s doubles final at Buenos Aires will be played between Jarrko Nieminen/Andre Sa and Pablo Andujar/Oliver Marach. Playing as a team for the first time, the Finnish/Brazilian pair of Nieminen/Sa defeated Argentina’s Federico Delbonis/Andres Molteni 2-6, 6-2, 10-6 while Andujar/Marach scored an easy 6-3, 6-2 victory over Carlos Berlocq/Diego Schwartzman.
At Acapulco, David Ferrer was relentless in winning his fourth Abierto Mexicano Telcel title. In the final on Saturday, Ferrer brushed aside no.1 seed Kei Nishikori of Japan 6-3, 7-5. It was Ferrer’s third title of the 2015 season that has been superb so far with an 18-1 record. Ferrer took an early 3-1 lead in the first set and the exchanged breaks with the Japanese before taking the set. In the second, Ferrer opened another 3-0 lead but the Japanese came back strongly to level at 4-4. Soon, Ferrer broke Nishikori once again, and at 5-4 had a chance to serve for the match but yet again the Japanese mounted pressure to force a break of his own to level the score at 5-5. Not to be outdone, Ferrer found another break and served out the set to win in 1 hour and 49 minutes.
Men’s singles final at Dubai was preceded by the men’s doubles final at Dubai, where fourth seeded indo-Canadian pair of Rohan Bopanna/Daniel Nestor had an easy 6-4, 6-1 victory over Pakistan’s Aisham-Ul-Haq-Quereshi and Serbian Zimonjic. The champions had a good start and they capitalized by keeping the momentum all through. This was the second ATP title for Bopanna/Nestor after they won the Sydney Open in January by defeating Rojer/Tecau in the final.