SPORTS

Nadal enters Swedish Open final

July 10, 2005 15:36 IST

Top seed Rafael Nadal cruised into the Swedish Open final on Saturday with a 6-3, 6-3 victory over fellow Spaniard Tommy Robredo.

The 19-year-old French Open champion took his claycourt winning streak to 28 and is one match away from becoming the first man to win seven titles on the surface in one season since Thomas Muster in 1996.

The Mallorcan will face another 19-year-old, Tomas Berdych, who disposed of Czech compatriot Jiri Vanek 7-5, 6-1. Berdych has won one ATP title to date in Palermo last year.

Despite still not having dropped a set at the tournament, Nadal was critical of his perfomance against Robredo.

"I think I played my worst match this week," he said. "If I play the final like I played today, I'll have problems.

"I made a lot of misses and mistakes. In the second set I played much better in the first four games, I was a bit more aggressive. Then I played really bad."

After a promising start, Robredo crumbled under the pressure of Nadal's heavy baseline game, hitting too many unforced errors to threaten the teenager.

Nadal grabbed three breaks and conceded one to take the first set and then raced into a 4-0 lead in the second.

Robredo pegged him back to 5-3 but failed to break when 40-0 up in Nadal's next service game.

Sunday's final will be the first ATP final pitting two teenagers against each other since Delray Beach in 1999 when Australia's Lleyton Hewitt defeated Belgian Xavier Malisse.

"Rafael is the best player on clay so it will be difficult to beat him," said Berdych. "I will try to play my game and serve well, and I'll try to avoid long rallies, because he is like a machine."

Source: REUTERS
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