Madrid always seems to be the toughest of the clay court Masters for Rafael Nadal to win as the last time he won there was in 2010, but after a close match with Ferrer on Friday he cruised through to win the title. Serena always seems to have the most clay court success at Madrid and she defended her title and retains the world no. 1 ranking as well.
5) Rafael Nadal (ESP) def. 15) Stanislas Wawrinka (SUI) 6-2 6-4
-Nadal wins his 55th career title, 5th of 2013, last '13 Barcelona
-It is his 40th career clay title
-It is just his 3rd win in Madrid, but only his 2nd since the event switched to clay in 2009 ('10)
-It is his ongoing record 23rd Masters title
-He remains in the no. 5 ranking spot. He can pass Ferrer if he wins title in Rome.
-He now has a 10-match winning streak.
-With Federer failing to defend his Madrid title, Murray is locked into the no. 2 ranking. It is unlikely but possibly that Ferrer could get to no. 3 with a Rome title and an early Federer loss.
Wawrinka made his first career Masters final with a win over Berdych in the semis. Wawrinka and Berdych pulled upsets in close matches over Tsonga and Murray. Andujar continued his fairy tale run with an upset of Nishikori in the quarters, but that just meant he would be Nadal's next victim. Ferrer was up a set and a break on Nadal early in the 2nd but couldn't keep the lead and Rafa won the 2nd set in a tiebreak and cruised through the 3rd set.
1) Serena Williams (USA) def. 2) Maria Sharapova (RUS) 6-1 6-4
-Serena wins her 50th career title, 4th of 2013, last '13 Charleston
-It is her 2nd Madrid title ('12)
-She retains her no. 1 ranking. Had Sharapova won, she would have taken the ranking, at least for 1 week, as she defends her Rome title this coming week.
-It is her 14th "Tier I" title
-She is the 10th player all time to win 50 titles. The others are Navratilova, Evert, Graf, Court, Goolagong, King, Davenport, Wade, and Seles.
Serena survived a 2nd set bagel against Medina Garrigues to win 7-5 in the 3rd in the quarters and then conquered Errani in straight sets. Ivanovic picked up a nice result with an upset of Kerber in the quarters before falling easily to Sharapova.
Serena and Sharapova seem to be head and shoulders above the rest of the field at this point and their main competitors Azarenka, Radwanska, and Li seem to be falling by the wayside. Sharapova's clay court record speaks for itself but Serena is always an upset candidate on the red stuff. I wouldn't be surprised to see these two contending for the title against one another in Rome or Paris.
Nadal has his act together but the other Big 4 members are all question marks. Does this mean another amazing clay court season is in the works for the King of Clay? This result bodes well for Wawrinka moving forward. He improved to no. 12 in the world and is a threat to crack the top 10 this year. He didn't beat a Big 4 member this week but did take down Tsonga and Berdych. Is the man known primarily as the Swiss no. 2 ready to make his own headlines?
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