Rafael Nadal picked up his fifth Madrid Open title when edging past Dominic Thiem in straight sets on Sunday.
First, though, Nadal will be entirely focused on Madrid, but he will certainly be the favourite against either No8 Dominic Thiem or the unseeded Pablo Cuevas-though each has claimed a clay win over Nadal in the past.
Men's world No. 1 Andy Murray may have wowed the crowds past year when he bossed Novak Djokovic in the final to claim his maiden win in the Italian capital.
Djokovic was playing his first tournament in Madrid since parting company with his long-term coach Marian Vajda.
He missed two match points on his serve and then had to save a break point before taking the contest at the third time of asking to reach the Madrid final for the eighth time.
Both had their chances in the tie-break as Thiem again fought back from 3-5 down to have two set points of his own only to be denied by two punishing Nadal forehands.
Nadal's superiority, on top of Federer's three titles in the 2017's biggest hard-court events to date, supports the curious impression that men's tennis is stuck in a 10-year timewarp.
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"Things are working out, and I'm very happy for that", he said after his two-hour and 17-minute tussle with a powerful and energetic Thiem. The Austrian had broken early to take a 2-1 lead in the set, but Nadal would break back to level proceeding at 3-3.
Rafael Nadal is now on his customary clay cruise this time of the year, something we did not witness over the past couple of seasons.
At the time of writing this piece (Friday), World Number 2 Novak Djokovic is set to take on Kei Nishikori in the first quarter-final of the ongoing Madrid Masters.
He told atpworldtour.com: "What's important to me is to make it to another final". "It means a lot to me to win at home, it's always a special place for me".
The audience appeared to sense Thiem's defiance was waning, but the player wasn't as content with his fate and rallied to fend off two match points, tying at deuce before landing a final game blow to pull within a game at 5-4 down. And in his first clay-court tournament of the year, in Monte Carlo, Djokovic was eliminated by David Goffin in the quarterfinals.
We saw a poor performance from Djokovic, and Nadal who is looking absolutely magnificent on clay this season, used this situation and immediately imposed his style of play. "I'm on the right track", said the Spaniard.
A 14-time Grand Slam champion, Nadal is now strong favourite to collect a 10th French Open crown next month, and this victory also moves him above Roger Federer to fourth in the world rankings.
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