World No 1 and undisputed clay king Rafael Nadal survived a scare yesterday at the clay Rome Masters as he overcame a sloppy start to beat Italian qualifier Paolo Lorenzi 6-7, 6-4, 6-0. But there were no such difficulties for man of the moment Novak Djokovic who took his winning streak this year to 33 matches with an embarrassingly one-sided 6-0, 6-3 destruction of Pole Lukasz Kubot. <img alt="" src="/imagedata/2011/may/rn.jpg" border="5" /> Spaniard Rafael Nadal returns to Italian Paolo Lorenzi during yesterday's Rome Masters match. PIC/AFP Following his defeat to Djokovic in the Madrid final last week, the 24-year-old Nadal came close to losing a second successive match on clay for the first time in his career before eventually romping home in the deciding set. Djokovic's victory edged him closer to American John McEnroe's 27-year-old record of a 42-match winning start to a season. This tie was never in any doubt and Kubot never looked like improving on his two previous straight set defeats to the Serbian 23-year-old, who in the previous two weeks won in Belgrade and Madrid.

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World No 1 and undisputed clay king Rafael Nadal survived a scare yesterday at the clay Rome Masters as he overcame a sloppy start to beat Italian qualifier Paolo Lorenzi 6-7, 6-4, 6-0

Nadal survives, Djokovic cruises in Rome

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Nadal survives, Djokovic cruises in Rome

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