Nadal takes Hamburg Masters title from Federer

BEIJING, May 19 (Xinhuanet) -- Rafael Nadal avenged a loss to Roger Federer in the championship match of the Hamburg Masters last year, and in the process regained his crown as the "King of Clay," defeating the world's No. 1-ranked player 7-5, 6-7(3), 6-3 on Sunday to win the last French Open tuneup.

It was the reverse of last year's final, when Federer won his fourth title in Hamburg and snapped Nadal's 81-match winning streak on clay.

Nadal rallied from big deficits in the first two sets, although he lost the tiebreaker in the second. He led 4-1 in the third and held on to raise his record against the top-ranked player to 8-1 on clay and 10-6 overall.

"All the week has been very special for me," Nadal said. "It was a strange match. Roger made some mistakes in the first set that helped me. ... It was important to win because it was the last big clay-court tournament I never won."

The second-ranked Spaniard has 26 career titles, 21 of them on clay, including the last three French Opens. Nadal also won in Monte Carlo