Rafael Nadal has been defeated by Horacio Zeballos of Argentina in the final match of the VTR Open 2013. Zeballos won the match by 6-7(2), 7-6(6), 6-4. It was a thrilling encounter and the match went all the way down to the wire.

This was a comeback tournament for Rafael Nadal and he had performed sensationally before this match. He hadn’t lost even a single set on his way to the final. But, in the final match, he didn’t manage to dominate his opponent.

Talking to the reporters after losing the final match, Nadal said, “Overall, I am quite happy with my performance in this competition. I was making a comeback after almost 7 months and honestly speaking, I hadn’t expected myself to be fluent in the first few matches. But, I played well right from the start.”

Nadal made a decent start in the final match. In the opening set, he held his entire serve. However, he didn’t manage to latch on any break chance. The set went into the tie breaker in which Nadal took a lead of 5-1. He didn’t lose the plot after that and sealed the opening set with 7-6(2).

The proceedings were pretty much similar in the following set as well. Again, both the players held their entire serve and the set was again extended into the tie breaker. But, this time around, the Argentinean didn’t let Nadal dominate in the tie breaker. Zeballos won the tie breaker by a close margin and grabbed the second set.

Nadal was off to a fine start in the third set with a breakthrough in the very first game, but, he lost his lead immediately as his service was broken in the second game. The next seven games went with the serve and at the end of the 9^th game; Zeballos was ahead by 5-4. In the 10^th game, the Argentinean got another breakthrough and wrapped up the proceedings with that.