Madrid 2012: Federer and Serena Win Titles

As I predicted, Roger Federer won his 3rd Madrid Masters title and record 20th ATP Masters series title by coming back to edge Tomas Berdych 3-6 7-5 7-5 in a tightly contested 3-set match whose result hinged on one or two points. With his victory, Federer is now the #2 player in the world, and since losing to the World #1 Novak Djokovic (despite having double match point in the 5th set) at the 2011 US  Open semifinals the Swiss great is now 45-3 (losses to Rafael Nadal in the 2012 Australian Open semifinals, John Isner on clay in Basel, Switzerland in Davis Cup and Andy Roddick in the 3rd round of the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami).

As expected Serena Williams overwhelmed putative World #1 Victoria Azarenka 6-1 6-3 (the identical score by which she eliminated World #2 Maria Sharapova) in a match whose outcome was almost never in doubt. Serena broke Azarenka's serve in the very first game of the match and basically never looked back, blasting 26 winners (including 14 aces in 8 service game!) to a mere 5 winners (no aces) for the world's top ranked player.

The Madrid Mutua Open title is Serena's 41st of her career (15 losses) and Roger's 74th (30 losses).