Melbourne, Australia—An imperious Novak Djokovic won a record magnificent seventh Australian Open title by routing Rafael Nadal 6-3, 6-2, 6-3 Sunday with a display of flawless tennis.
The Serbian world number one dominated the Spanish second seed to win his 15th Grand Slam title in just 2hr 4min on Rod Laver Arena.
It put Djokovic, 31, out on his own ahead of Roger Federer and Roy Emerson, who both won six Australian Open men’s singles titles.
A confident Djokovic opened the match with a serve to love and then promptly broke the out-of-sorts Nadal – remarkably his first service break since round one against James Duckworth. The Serb was being aggressive and Nadal looked rattled. He won only one point out of the first 12 to find himself 3-0 down.
Djokovic had a break point to make it 4-0 but the Spaniard hung on to hold and finally got in the match, pumping his fist in celebration. But again the world number one held to love, meaning the sluggish Nadal hadn’t won a point on three Djokovic service games.
So bad was Nadal playing that he had a rare air shot – a swing and miss on what should have been a straightforward forehand as Djokovic served to love for a fourth game. Nadal showed glimpses of his best in the next game as he held, but Djokovic was simply too good and served out to easily take the set 6-3.