Novak Djokovic beats Rafael Nadal to win China cup

World number one Novak Djokovic continued his recent dominance over Rafael Nadal when he beat the Spaniard in the final of the China Open to win the tournament for the sixth time in Beijing on Sunday.

The Serbian showed no mercy against the Spaniard, who was hampered by a foot problem in the second set, as he cruised to a 6-2 6-2 victory at the National Tennis Centre in the Chinese capital.

Djokovic has now beaten Nadal in seven of their last eight meetings, dating back to the 2013 China Open, and is on the verge of levelling their head-to-head record.

The pair have played each other 45 times with Nadal, who has struggled with his form and niggling injuries in the past year, hanging on to a 23-22 advantage.

Djokovic was already well on top and in complete control when Nadal hurt his foot. He broke Nadal’s opening service game and fought off two break points on his own serve in the sixth game.

He broke Nadal again and took the first set in 41 minutes.

The world number eight took a medical timeout early in the second set when he hurt his right ankle but continued on, despite appearing to be in discomfort.

Djokovic then ran away from his ailing opponent in the second and sealed his victory with an ace.

Djokovic has never been beaten at the China Open, winning 29 matches in a row, and six titles in total. The 28-year-old has now 56 career titles, eight of them this year, including the Australian Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open grand slam crowns.

“I have played some of my best tennis in this tournament throughout the entire week and I managed to kind of ride on that wave of the confidence today in the finals and you know win against one of the biggest rivals in straight sets,” said Djokovic after his win.

“He did have a little bit of an injury, he did struggle a little bit with the movement but I tried to obviously focus on what I needed to do and I’m just very pleased with the way I’ve played the entire week and it’s something that I’ll hopefully carry in the next one as well,” the Serb added.