Nadal v Gonzalez

Match Date: 17th August 2008

So the Olympic Final has been decided, we haven't got a Nadal v Federer final but still it has promise of being a thriller.

Gonzalez has quietly and confidently won each round, ending with a semi final marathon with James Blake of the USA.

For the first time in these Olympics he showed some nerves in the semis, he made mistakes which gave Blake an early lead. However he regained his composure to fight back hard to win the match 4-6, 7-5, 11-9 after two hours and fifty one minutes.

Gonzalez is no newcomer to the Olympics he won Bronze last time around at Athens in the singles and Gold in the doubles.

Nadal of course is the king of clay but Gonzalez has beaten him before on this surface although this was in 2003 and Nadal is of course a different player these days and he comes to the final to try and give Spain its first ever gold Olympic tennis medal.

Nadal gains his number one status on Monday from Roger Federer, and what better way to start as number one than as Olympic Champion?

The odds are short for Nadal but it is going take something extra-ordinary from Gonzalez if he is to beat Nadal at Beijing.

Head to Head Record

Year	Tournament	Round	Surface	Winner	Score
2003	Stuttgart Outdoor	32	Clay	F.GONZALEZ	2-6 6-3 2-6
2004	Miami	16	Hard	F.GONZALEZ	6-7(1) 6-4 2-6
2006	Rome	QF	Clay	R.NADAL	6-4 6-3
2007	Australian Open	QF	Hard	F.GONZALEZ	2-6 4-6 3-6
2007	Rome	FR	Clay	R.NADAL	6-2 6-2
2007	Hamburg	QF	Clay	R.NADAL	6-4 6-4
2008	Olympic Tennis Event - Beijing	FR	Hard	R.NADAL	6-3 7-6(2) 6-3
Rafael NADAL (ESP) Leads Fernando GONZALEZ (CHI) : 4 to 3

Review

Nadal cannot stop winning at the moment and took the Gold Medal 6-3 7-6 (7-2) 6-3.