TNT Sports
Safin masters Madrid
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Published 24/10/2004 at 18:30 GMT+1
Former world number one Marat Safin won his first title since the Paris Masters in 2002 on Sunday with a 6-2 6-4 6-3 victory over Argentine David Nalbandian at the Casa de Campo in Madrid. The 24-year-old Russian won his 13th career crown and will move to
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The Jekyll and Hyde of men's tennis had shown in the semi-finals against Andre Agassi that when he's in the mood he could be a challenger to Roger Federer. Sunday's performance confirmed this.
Against Nalbandian, Safin swaggered around Pista Central with the same crushing authority, emerging from a run of three broken service games with a 3-1 lead on his way to taking the first set in just 29-minutes.
"The match was quite a lot easier than I'd expected," said Safin afterwards. "I don't think I can go on playing like this forever - it's too good."
His fourth Masters Series victory is enough to take Safin into sixth place in the ATP Champions Race, leaving Tim Henman to sweat further over a spot in next month's Tennis Masters Cup in Houston.
Nalbandian, who has been beaten in four of five previous meetings with Safin, was always going to have to be at his peak to unsettle the Russian third seed.
As a result, the Argentine went for his shots from the start but he was unable to match Safin's combination of power and accuracy, tiring towards the end of the second set.
The 22-year-old, most notably, made two backhand errors in the tenth game and Safin needed no second opportunity, growing in confidence and getting the crucial break at the start of the third.
From then on the Safin of 2000 came to the fore and a one hour 52 minute victory was always assured.
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