It took nearly a quarter of a day, but Spaniard Rafael Nadal won yet another claycourt tournament.

Nadal outlasted ninth-seeded Argentine Guillermo Coria, 6-4 3-6 6-3 4-6 7-6 (8-6) in 5 hours, 15 minutes on Sunday to win the US$2.7 million Telecom Italia Masters Roma.

It was 30 minutes longer than any other match on the ATP Tour this year.

The 18-year-old Nadal, the fifth seed in his first tournament here, claimed his third consecutive title and fifth claycourt championship of the season.

The left-hander won his 17th straight match and improved to 31-2 on the surface this year, and became the first teenager since Andre Agassi in 1988 to win five titles in a year.

Nadal - who joined world number one Roger Federer as the only players on tour to win five titles this year - improved to 2-1 lifetime against the ninth-seeded Coria, the runner-up in last year's French Open.

The 23-year-old Coria lost to Nadal in four sets in the final of Monte Carlo last month and beat the Spaniard in straight sets in Monte Carlo in 2003.

After dropping just eight games in his first three matches, Nadal rallied for three-set wins in his next two matches.

He came back against Czech Radek Stepanek in the quarter-finals and fellow Spaniard David Ferrer in the semi-finals.

In this one, Coria saved a match point on his serve at 5-6 in the fifth set, then held to force a tie-break.

Nadal double-faulted at 6-5 in the tie-break, but he won a long rally on the next point, then secured the championship a point later when Coria hit a backhand volley long.