Rafael Nadal clinched his first Hamburg Masters title in an epic 3 hour battle in which the Spaniard won 7-5 6-7 (3-7) 6-3 over the defending champion and world number 1 Roger Federer.

This title marked the last of all the major clay court tournaments left for the young Spaniard to win and his is 26th title of his career. In an amazingly tough and tense afair, Nadal came back from 5-1 down to clinch the first set, while Federer also let an advantage slip in the second only to clinch the set in the tie-break. Rafael Nadal then broke twice in the final to take the title.

The defeat to Federer will be a huge blow to an already tough season for the Swiss star, Nadal has now beaten Federer on eight of the pair’s previous nine meetings on clay. Federers solitary victory over the Spaniard came in last year’s Hamburg final when Federer ended Nadal’s 81 match winning streak on clay. However today it was Nadal’s turn to break Federers record unbeaten run of 41 matches unbeaten on German soil, which includes titles at Hamburg and Halle.

If Federer wasn’t feeling the pressure before, he certainly will now. If Andy Murray had thrown away 5-1 lead, the British press would have labled him a bottler, this is exactly what Federer is when it comes to facing Rafael Nadal on Clay, even going all the way back to their very first match in the French Open final when Rafael burst onto the stage, he had chances to win the win the match, but he bottled it!

Most of the top players will take next week off in preperations for French Open which starts   

Andy Murray stepped out onto to court today one year older, he was celebrating his 21st birthday a day of significance in all our lives. It was one year ago at this very tournament that Andy Murray had another significant, it was not his 20th birthday he will look back on has being significant it would be wrist injury he suffered that would put him out the game for 5 months.

Today though Hamburg would serve up another major event in Andy Murray’s life. Rafael Nadal came bearing gifts on Andy’s big day, the Spaniard delivered the young Scot “a complete guide on how to win at clay Court tennis” and gave Andy his first lesson winning their match 6-3, 6-2 in the Hamburg Masters third round

Despite Nadalcoming into the match struggling with fatigue and blisters, he shook off a slow start to dominate the match and despite some very brief signs that Andy Murray was finally getting to grips with the red stuff, Nadal rarely looked threatened and eased to a very comfortable win. After the match Murray said,

I just want to concentrate right now on getting closer to the guys at the top. Whether or not I’ll play as well on clay as on other surfaces, I don’t really know. But my game is definitely getting better and that is one positive thing I can leave with.

Nadal, will now face compatriot Carlos Moya in round four, he will be joined by defending champion Roger Federer who beat Sweden’s Robin Soderling and world number three Novak Djokovic who beat Croat Ivo Karlovic. While Nicolas Kiefer became the first German this century to make the quarter-finals. Kiefer beat Nikolay Davydenko 7-5 6-3 to become the first home player to pass the third round since Tommy Haas in 1999 and he will face Italy’s Andreas Seppi in Friday’s quarter-final.