Thiem Beats Nadal to Reach Barcelona Final Versus Medvedev, who Ousted Nishikori

(April 27, 2019) Dominic Thiem handed top seed and 11-time champion Rafael Nadal a 6-4, 6-4 loss in Barcelona. This marks the fourth time that Thiem has beaten Nadal on a clay court.

It was the first time that the Spaniard had ever lost in the final four of Barcelona.

Thiem joins Novak Djokovic in being the only players to beat Nadal four times on a clay court.

Thiem broke Nadal’s serve twice – in the fifth game of both the first and the second sets.

“I’m always super proud if I beat him because he’s the best player ever on this surface, and it’s always very special to beat him here on clay,” Thiem said. “We always had great matches in the past, and also today was very good and I was more lucky today and I got the win.”

“After this week my confidence is back,” Nadal said in his news conference. “I really believe that I made very good improvements to create a good base to try to achieve my goals during the next couple of weeks.”

Nadal lost in the semifinals of Monte-Carlo last week to Fabio Fognini.

“Big difference(between the the losses), Nadal said. “Against Fognini I played the worst match probably in 14 years on clay. Today I played a good match of tennis. It a good level of tennis this afternoon. I played against a great opponent.”

The Austrian will meet Daniil Medvedev in Sunday’s final after the Russian pulled off an upset of his own beating fourth seed Kei Nishikori 6-4, 3-6, 7-5. Thiem leads the head-to-head record at 1-0.

The 23-year-old Russian leads the ATP Tour with 25 wins, including eight on clay this year.