Novak Djokovic overcame last year's Indian Wells title winner Rafael Nadal in straigth sets, 6:3 6:2. It was yet another Novak's powerful perfomance, yet another straigth sets sets win.. could he be any better? :)
On a sunny Californian day, Novak fully controled the match, he's services were unbeatable and he constantly put pressure on Rafael's service points, it all eventually led to almost easy win in 87 minutes of play in front of 15.000 spectators in the world's second largest tennis stadium.
Key moment in first set happened at 4:3 when Novak made a break for a 5:3, and won the set by keeping his serve. In pause between two sets, Rafael asked for medical help suffering problems with leg thumb.
Beginning of second set, Rafael seemed to have the power to bounce back and took 2:1 lead and was close to make a break, though he did not and this seemed to be the crucial moment of the match, he did not win any more games to end the set 6:2 in Novak's favor.
This is what Novak had to say about the match: 'I had some really important wins last year, which proved and made me believe that I can be one of the best players in the world and I have enough quality for that'.
Rafael: 'I had very tough matches in the rounds before, very tight matches. You have to be 100%. He played less hours than me on court, easier matches, and he play better than me, so [I could] not do a thing'.
After the match, Novak and Rafael are 3:6 in head-to-head duels. Novak is heading full forward towards World #2 position. Since he played in last year's Indian Wells Final as well and won Miami tournament that starts week after Indian Wells, he will not gain too many new ATP points to overtake Rafael from #2 or Roger Federer from #1 position until the end of this month but everyone agrees it can easily happen in a April or May before Roland Gaross starts.
Reaching the Indian Wells Final, Novak has earned $277.500 in prize money and defended 350 ATP points. If he wins the tournament he will earn additional 150 points and close the gap with Rafael in ATP rankings who lost 275 points failing to qualify in the Final of the tournament he won last year.
Novak's convincing win against Rafael shows how much he has improved from last season when he achieved biggest successes of his career up to then to reach Indian Wells Final and enter ATP Top 10 for the first time in his career. So Novak has won the first Grand Slam of this season, now he plays in the final of first Master Series Tournament of the season after all 2:0 wins.
Novak will play against Mardy Fish who managed to beat no other than Roger Federer in two sets, 6:3 6:2, in only 1 hour and 3 minutes of play. Mardy won 90% of points afte good first serve and 70% on second serve having 8 aces.
Mardy is World #98 and the biggest surprise of the tournament, he will now fight for emense 500 ATP points for 10s of places improvement in the new ATP rankings.
Novak and Mardy played only once in a match that Novak won at the US Open two years ago. Here are Novak's thoughts on the upcoming match against Mardy: 'He's a really difficult opponent to play against. He’s obviously playing on top of his shape in this tournament, has nothing to lose'. Match will start around 2pm local time.
Message to Novak: win Master Series tournament, it's that easy for you :)
