With yesterday’s victory at the Miami tournament Novak Djokovic (photo ©Spekoek) won the Indian Wells / Miami combo and in 2011 he remains undefeated with 24 straight wins, 26 by adding 2 in the Davis Cup final last year.

Novak Djokovic had taken the second place in the world ranking with the victory at Indian Wells, with the victory in Miami he consolidated it taking some distance from Roger Federer. Djokovic’s ambition is to reach the first place in the ranking but Rafa Nadal still has a lead of more than 3,000 points so it will be far from easy.

At Indian Wells Novak Djokovic kept a high pace of play throughout the final and it was Rafa Nadal who lowered his performance. In Miami for a couple of hours it seemed that the story would be repeated with Nadal winning the first set and Djokovic the second but in the third set the Spaniard didn’t give up, on the contrary he recovered his intensity so at that point the match became very close and incredibly exciting.

It was almost inevitable that the final was decided at the third set tie-break but curiously, after both players had always kept their serve in the set, the first 5 points in the tie-break were won by the player at the return, adding even more excitement. The two players were clearly in great physical shape to be able to play for three hours at that level but inevitably in the last points they felt a bit tired.

Rafa Nadal has often “cooked” his opponents with a high pace made of powerful shots and great defensive abilities that allow him to send back balls that other players don’t even try to hit back. At Indian Wells in the semifinals he defeated the come-back Juan Martin Del Potro, instead in the Miami semifinals he clearly defeated Roger Federer showing his fitness, yet Novak Djokovic didn’t allow him to dominate, actually in the end the Serb took control and last night he gave again the impression that he won the decisive points of the final tie-break because he had a better athletic condition.

Yesterday Novak Djokovic also showed a great mental strength because Nadal was determined to win the Miami tournament and tried everything to succeed but the Serb remained calm until his last run in the decisive tie-break.

At the end Rafa Nadal was obviously saddened by the defeat but he wanted to see the glass half full because he did better than semifinals he reached last year at Indian Wells and Miami. Definitely he’ll try again to win these two tournaments because it’s in his nature of agonist, this year he simply found an extraordinary opponent.

Roger Federer comes out clearly defeated from the two major American tournaments. For another player two semifinals would be a satisfactory result, for Roger Federer losing to Djokovic in Indian Wells and in Miami to Nadal is a negative result. It’s obvious that he’s slowly going towards the end of his career but he’ll definitely try to win some more Grand Slam tournaments.

If Federer isn’t happy Andy Murray has to be depressed. The Scot hasn’t won a match since the Australian Open semifinals and now needs to completely rebuild some confidence. Being a mental problem it’s very difficult to understand when and if he can do it.

[ad name=”AmazonTennis468″]

The good news is that Juan Martin Del Potro reached the Indian Wells semifinals and the Miami fourth round, showing that he’s coming back to top level. If he continues to improve in terms of physical and mental health this summer we’ll have fun for the struggle that we’ll see.

Next week the clay season begins with a Monte Carlo tournament and obviously Rafa Nadal is the favorite for all tournaments on this surface. It will be interesting to see how long Novak Djokovic will maintain his extraordinary shape. It’s humanly impossible to continue indefinitely and the Serb has never beaten Nadal on clay although on several occasions their matches were close.

The other players certainly will not just stand by and will try to take advantage of any moment of weakness they’ll see in the best ones. Let’s hope we’ll have fun!