Murray beats Nadal for title in Tokyo

TOKYO, Oct. 9 (UPI) -- Andy Murray snapped a five-match losing streak against Rafael Nadal on Sunday in winning the championship at the Rakutan Japan Open Tennis Tournament.

Murray, No. 4 in the world, rallied for a 3-6, 6-2, 6-0 win over the world No. 2 Nadal by taking more than two-thirds of the points over the second and third sets. Murray won 24-of-28 points in the third-set shutout.

Murray, who also picked up a title last week in Bangkok, won for the 21st time in his last 22 matches.

Sunday marked the fifth time this year Murray played Nadal and all of the previous matches were won by Nadal. Nadal also took his final meeting of 2010 against Murray.

The title match in Tokyo seemed to start in the same vein when Murray lost his opening service game, which led to the first-set loss. However, that turned out to be the only drop of serve for Murray on the day.

He was down 0-40 while serving in the second set but blasted three consecutive aces to even the game and then held serve. He lost one game the rest of the match.

"I played some great tennis, especially in the third set," Murray said. "There were a lot of close games toward the end of the first set and beginning of the second and I managed to get the momentum and didn't give him many chances after that."

It was the fourth championship of the year -- and No. 20 for his career-- for Murray, who won $295,000 for the title. Nadal, who had won three times this year, was regulated to runner-up for the seventh time in 2010. All of the other title losses for Nadal in 2011 came against Novak Djokovic.