In Madrid, Nadal won his first four matches without the loss of the set, including victories over Top 20 players Tommy Robredo and Radek Stepanek. His opponent on this day in the final was 12th-ranked Ivan Ljubicic. Ljubicic at the time was red-hot. He’d won two straight tournaments (Metz and Vienna), 16 consecutive matches and over the course of 2005, would also lead Croatia to the Davis Cup title. In the semis of Madrid, Ljubicic had earned a three-set win over world No. 9 David Nalbandian.
Ljubicic and Nadal had already played one another twice, both times in 2005. Each match had gone three sets, Ljubicic winning in Doha, Nadal the victor in Miami.
ATP Masters 1000 finals in those days were three-out-of-five sets. Ljubicic’s big serve and sharp groundstrokes made him particularly effective indoors. So it was that Ljubicic dominated early. With all aspects of his game clicking superbly, he won the first two sets, 6-3, 6-2. Most notable was that Ljubicic’s one-handed backhand was smoothly handling Nadal’s lefthanded crosscourt forehand, a shot that usually tormented such one-handers as Federer. Added to this was exceptional serving, Ljubicic firing 32 aces. Forty-one percent of his serves were unreturnable. Ljubicic also hit 52 winners.
In trademark fashion, revealing his precocious superpowers as a competitor, Nadal fought back. At 2-2 in the third, he at last broke Ljubicic’s serve and went on to win the next two sets, 6-3, 6-4.