Spain's Rafael Nadal poses with the trophy after winning the final match against Fernando Gonzalez of Chile at the Rome Masters tennis tournament yesterday. - Reuters

ROME (Reuters)

Rafael Nadal racked up his third Rome Masters title in a row when he cruised to a 6-2, 6-2 victory over sixth seed Fernando Gonzalez yesterday.

The world number two had few problems beating Chilean Gonzalez, who struggled to get back into the final after making an error-riddled start.

The win gave Nadal his 13th consecutive claycourt title and extended his winning streak on the surface to 77 matches.

The Spaniard also equalled Thomas Muster's professional-era record of three Rome victories, though the Austrian won his over a period of seven years, in 1990, 1995 and 1996.

"It's incredible. To win here for a third time is a dream," Nadal said at the courtside, before admitting the match had been easier than he expected.

Mistakes

"Fernando made far more mistakes thanusuall, and I took advantage of that."

Gonzalez had defeated Nadal in straight sets on the way to reaching the final of the Australian Open in January.

This time, however, the 26-year-old Chilean appeared out of sorts. The metronomic groundstrokes he had used to sweep aside Italian wildcard Filippo Volandri in the semi-finals deserted him. Instead he made a succession of unforced errors, gifting Nadal breaks in the first and fifth games to lose the first set in just over half an hour.

Gonzalez said Nadal had made it impossible for him to play his own game.

"It's easy to say my serve didn't work, or I had a bad day, but I think the reason (I didn't play well) was him," he said. "He tries to play very high and deep. He's very fit - he can play for hours out there.

"If I could play the match again, maybe I would try to get my first serve in more, be less aggressive, but there's nothing I can do now."