Djokovic Will Play Nadal In Finals In Monte-Carlo

MONTE-CARLO, MONACO - Serbia's Nadal Djokovic (see photo) beat Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland yesterday (4-6, 6-1, 6-3) in the Semi-Finals of the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters 1000 in Monaco. Djokovic's win takes him into the Monte-Carlo finals today against Spain's Rafael Nadal, who has won at the Monaco Tournament the successively in the last four years. Nadal has a 28-1 match wins record in Monte-Carlo and is favoured to take a fifth title in today's event.

At Djokovic's news conference yesterday evening after his doubles match, he was asked whether there was any chance for him to defeat Nadal today in the finals. Nadal said that you don't reach the finals in Monte-Carlo without the belief that you can win there, and that he was determined to enter today's match with the confidence to come out on top. Rafael Nadal was also asked yesterday at his news conference about his thoughts regarding the upcoming match with Djokovic, and he said, "He's a good player (Djokovic). I think he's playing well. He's having a very good tournament. I will have to play my best tennis if I want to have chances to win, so I am going to try to play aggressive and try my best."

Nadal is has a 22-1 finals lifetime record on clay courts and the only time he has lost is in a championship match against Federer in Hamburg, Germany in May 2007. Today's Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters finals event between Nadal and Djokovic will start at 14:00 CET (Paris Time) and is expected to have a huge worldwide television viewing audience.