Nadal falls in Madrid to lose the world no.1 rank

The run is over, but what a record!

Rafael Nadal winning streak of 50 consecutive sets on clay has been interrupted by Dominic Thiem in Madrid after the Austrian defeated the world no.1 7-5 6-3 in the quarters.

The match

It was clear from the very beginning that this would not have been an easy match for the King of Clay as Thiem appeared immediately aggressive from the baseline and Rafa was not in complete control of the rallies often missing his deadly forehand.

One of the most important moments of the contest was when Dominic failed to convert a set point while leading 5-4 40-30 in the opening set before dropping his serve. Then, the Austrian broke soon after (Rafa missed a lot of forehands)  in the 11^th game (6-5), he held his serve to win the opener 7-5 after 75 minutes!

Dominic started well in the second set to grab a fast 3-1 lead, but Rafa fought back to make it even (3-3). When everything was pointing at a fierce comeback from the Spaniard it was Thiem to conquer the following 3 games a won the match after 1 hour and 56 minutes.

This result is even more remarkable as Dominic won just 2 games (6-0 6-2) a few weeks ago when he lost to Nadal in the quarters in Monte-Carlo.

After this match, Nadal will lose the world no.1 rank and Federer will be back at the top.

How I defeated Nadal. THIEM

Soon after the match, Dominic revealed what he had to do to beat Nadal

“I had to play an extraordinary match, and that’s what I did. It takes a really good match to beat Rafa on clay, but I think a very important thing was that I went in with the attitude that I can beat him. Obviously, two weeks ago in Monte-Carlo, he killed me love and two. It was very important I went into the match with a positive attitude, with an attitude to win.

I moved well [and] I was physically tough. But always against him, there are long rallies. You get out of breath. My groundstrokes were the best; they were very aggressive. I think I really hurt him with them. I didn’t make too many stupid errors. That was important.”

The semifinal vs. Anderson

Dominic will face Kevin Anderson in the semifinal. The head to head is 6-0 for the South African, but they have never played on clay court where the Austrian is supposed to be the favorite.