Rafael Nadal vs. Gilles Simon: Score and Recap from 2014 Rome Masters

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at Internationaled.org

Published: May 14, 2014

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Defending champion Rafael Nadal kicked off his title defense at the 2014 Italian Open on Wednesday with a dramatic three-set win over world No. 30 Gilles Simon.   

ESPN Tennis shared the 7-6(1), 6-7(4), 6-2 scoreline:



The inspiring effort, which improves Nadal to 6-1 all time against the Frenchman, propels the seven-time Rome Masters champion into Thursday's round of 16.

Despite having suffered some head-scratching losses on clay this season, Nadal admitted on Tuesday that his triumph in Madrid last week was pivotal for his chances moving forward, per ATPWorldTour.com:

"I think in Madrid I played better than I had the two previous weeks," he said. "It's true that wasn't the case in the final, but the quarter-finals (against Tomas Berdych) and semi-finals (against Roberto Bautista Agut) were two good matches against two good, in-form players. It was good for my confidence."

Nadal would require every bit of that belief on Wednesday.



Both Nadal and Simon came out firing in the first set as each held serve through the first four games. However, Nadal would begin to separate himself midway through the opening set after breaking the Frenchman.

While Simon's aggressive game plan was successful early, Nadal found a way to maintain the upper hand, as tennis enthusiast Matt Zemek noted:



But despite having two chances to serve out the opening set, Nadal was unable to close out Simon in comfortable fashion, suffering his first break in the 10th game, per The Times' tennis correspondent Neil Harman: 



Rafa would break right back with a brilliant curving shot, per TennisTV on Twitter:



The theme continued as Simon would break Nadal in the very next game to force a tiebreak. But the Spaniard was clearly determined to finish the job in the extra session, winning the final ...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Tennis

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