Nadal nails down final with victory over Ginepri

Rafael Nadal moved to within one win of his 11th title of the season on Saturday, slamming American Robby Ginepri 7-5, 7-6 (7/1) in the semi-finals of the 2.1-million-euro Madrid Masters.
The teenaged Roland Garros champion will Sunday play for the trophy against the winner from fifth seed David Nalbandian and Croatian Ivan Ljubicic, winner of his last 15 matches.
Both men are in the running for a place in next month's Masters Cup in Shanghai, an event for which world number two Nadal has already qualified.
The Spanish talent also pulled ahead of rival Roger Federer with 78 match wins this season to 77 for the Swiss, out of action for several weeks with ankle ligament damage.
Nadal, making only is second appearance at the home event and treating knee problems, scored his triumph in one hour, 41 minutes as Ginepri's game fell apart under the weight of 35 unforced errors in the pair's first meeting.
Despite a dozen aces off the American's racket, Nadal held on in the chase for a fourth Masters title of 2005. The loss stopped the progress of Ginepri, who began this season outside the Top 100 before suddenly turning on his form over the summer with a second career title and US Open semi-final.
In the opening set, Ginepri went onto the defensive in the seventh game after level-pegging with the Spaniard, saving two break points. But Nadal applied the screws on a third opportunity, taking a 4-3 lead as Ginepri netted a return.
The American refused to be intimidated putting on pressure of his own to force an immediate break point, 4-all.
That back-and-forth continued in the tenth game, where Nadal had to fight back from 0-30 to hold before forcing Ginepri to salvage a pair of break points with winners in the 11th.
But Nadal finally earned the break on an unforced error for 6-5, lifting the set after 51 minutes with an inside-out forehand winner.
Ginepri got into trouble in the seventh game of the second, producing three straight errors to hand Nadal a chance. After saving one, the American landed a forehand well long to drop to 3-4.
But first-set history repeated itself as Ginepri immediately pulled the break back for four games apiece. Nadal closed out a torrid tiebreaker to claim the win.