Nadal rarely loses matches from a winning position, but the Canadian was not going away quietly. Still, he looked finished when he fell behind early in the tiebreak. Throughout the match, Shapovalov worked the home crowd to get them loud and used the support as motivation. He broke at the first opportunity in the second set and while Nadal did break back, Shapovalov showed no nerves and broke again to send the match to a deciding set. The clash started out as most expected, with Nadal taking the opening set.īut the Canadian did not seem overawed by the occasion or his opponent. Read also: Milos Raonic: Canada’s Tennis Trailblazer Shapovalov had walked out on court with the Majorcan before a match at the 2008 National Bank Open in Toronto when Shapovalov was just nine. It was not his first time on court in Canada with Nadal. Shapovalov had only been on tour for a year and was competing in just his second Masters 1000 event, having made his debut in Toronto a year earlier. 1 ranking for the first time since June 2014 should he reach the semifinals and looked well on his way when he found himself up against 18-year-old Canadian Denis Shapovalov in the third round. He arrived in Montreal with a chance to regain the No. I’ve never seen anyone move like that on a tennis court.” 2017ġ2 years after winning his first title on a hard court, Nadal was in the midst of yet another renaissance after an injury-plagued 2016 season. In his 2009 autobiography Open, Agassi said of Nadal in that match, “I can’t fathom him. Like the first set, the Spaniard broke early and this time kept the foot on the gas, adding a second break as he wore his veteran opponent down to claim his first career title on a hard court. But Agassi hung tough in the second and made his move late, breaking at 5-4 to send the match to a deciding set. Nadal scored a break early in the opening set and raced out to a 4-1 lead, enough cushion to secure it. Read also: 2023 National Bank Open Toronto Players - Meet the ATP Top 10Įven if their styles were different, Nadal was in many ways the obvious successor to Agassi as the best pure baseliner in the game. His shots were unlike anything the tour had really seen, looping metres over the net before slamming down with massive amount of top spin. On the other side of the net was Nadal, still in his tank top and pirate-pants phase with his long hair flowing out from under his bandana. He hit the ball much flatter with more traditional groundstrokes. Agassi, years removed from his flamboyant outfits and wild hairstyles, was kitted out in simple solid colours. The pair provided such stark contrasts in both their look and game. The title match was a battle of generations, pitting the 19-year-old Nadal against the 35-year-old Andre Agassi.ĭespite his age, the eight-time major winner was still a force on the tour, ranked seventh in the world and one of the greatest hard-court players of all time (he would make the US Open final just a month later). The raging bull did not drop a set in his next four matches, including a 6-3, 6-1 victory in a rematch of the French Open final with Mariano Puerta, to reach his third hard court final and second at a Masters 1000 event. Nadal managed to grind past his childhood hero in three sets, which helped him find his top gear quickly. In Roger Federer’s absence, he was the top seed at a Masters 1000 event for the first time in Montreal but ran into trouble early in the tournament up against his fellow Majorcan and future coach Carlos Moya. All nine of his titles were on clay and he had lost both his previous hard-court finals. However, he had yet to prove himself on hard courts. When Rafael Nadal rolled up for his second appearance in Canada in August 2005 (he had lost in the first round of Toronto in the previous year) he was already a star on the ATP Tour, ranked second in the world and a nine-time titlist, including two Masters 1000s and his first major title at Roland-Garros earlier that year. On more than one occasion, matches he has played in Canada have dictated the course of the ATP Tour. He is the second-winningest man in the history of the National Bank Open and it is his most-successful event on a hard court. Many of those have come in Canada, where the Spaniard is a five-time champion.
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