Nadal completes clay-court set in Hamburg

Rafael Nadal beat defending champion Roger Federer 7-5, 6-7, 6-3 yesterday to win the Hamburg Masters and add the only major clay-court title missing from his impressive collection. It was a reverse of last year's final, when Federer won his fourth title in Hamburg and snapped Nadal's 81-match winning streak on clay.

Nadal rallied from big deficits in the first two sets. Although he lost the tiebreaker in the second, he led 4-1 in the third and held on to raise his record against the top-ranked player to 8-1 on clay and 10-6 overall. "All week has been very special for me," Nadal said. The second-ranked Spaniard has 26 career titles, 21 of them on clay, including the last three French Opens.

Federer lost his seventh match of the year and has only one title so far, at a relatively minor clay-court tournament in Estoril.

Federer went into the final with a 41-match winning streak in Germany and a 9-0 career record in finals on German soil. His last loss in Germany was in 2003.

Federer has been world No 1 since February 2004, but Nadal is the top player on the slower clay surface. Since April 2005, he has lost only twice in 110 matches on clay – to Federer last year in the Hamburg final and last week in Rome to Juan Carlos Ferrero, when Nadal was slowed by a painful blister on his foot.

Federer led 5-2 in the first set and wasted two set points before Nadal completed a comeback by winning six straight games. That gave him the first set and a 1-0 lead in the second.

Federer then won the next four games and went on to lead 5-2, but could not close out the set before the tiebreaker. Nadal had a three-hour match on Saturday, beating Novak Djokovic in three sets but appeared the fresher in the third set. After jumping to a 4-1 lead, he nearly broke Federer's serve again for 5-2, but the Swiss saved three break points.

Serving for the match, Nadal won the first three points and then hit a backhand cross-court winner. He then fell on his knees and looked into the sky.

Nadal became only the third player to own all three clay-court Masters Series titles, in Rome, Monte Carlo and Hamburg. "He had a great week and a great clay-court season," Federer said.