A dominant Rafael Nadal dismantled his fellow Spaniard David Ferrer 6-0, 6-2 to win a second Mexican Open title and continue his successful comeback from a long injury lay-off.
Nadal, ranked at No5 in the world after his seven-month absence, needed just over an hour to dispatch the top seed and world No4. "For me, I played almost perfectly," Nadal said. "I would have never imagined playing at the level that I played today. I'm leaving happy and surprised."
Nadal also confirmed he would play in this week's Indian Wells hard-court tournament, despite speculation he might miss the event to spare his knee. "My knee responded well all week. My heart tells me I should continue competing, that I need to move on to the next tournament," he added.
The Spaniard missed much of last season and the start of 2013 due to a partially torn tendon in the knee. He made his return early last month at the Chilean Open, losing in the final to the Argentinian Horacio Zeballos. A week later he claimed the Brazil Open title.
The former world No1 charged out of the blocks against Ferrer and won the first eight games. "Rafa was just better than me today," said the three-time defending champion Ferrer, who saw his 19-match winning streak at the clay-court event come to an end.
He waited 44 minutes to win his first game of the final, the crowd erupting in applause as he finally got his name on the board to trail 2-1 in the second set.
With Ferrer serving at 3-1 down, an extended rally in which both players scrambled back and forth from the net ended with a winning lob by Nadal, bringing the crowd to its feet and the score to 30-30. Nadal, the 2005 Mexican Open champion, won the next two points to lead by two breaks in the set and virtually put the match away.
"I played a great match against one of the top players in the world, a specialist in clay who did not look like himself out there. He had a bad day," Nadal said. "Those seven months are in the past, hopefully forever. I played like that did not happen, but it did happen."
