Stop me if you’ve seen this headline before: “Nadal wins Rogers Cup, withdraws from Cincinnati.”
In fact, you have seen it. Right here: https://tenngrand.com/2018/08/13/nadal-wins-rogers-cup-withdraws-cincinnati/
For the second year in a row, Rafael Nadal triumphed at the Rogers Cup and then immediately withdrew from the ensuing Masters 1000 event in Cincinnati. The top-seeded Spaniard lifted Canada’s trophy for the fifth time on Sunday, successfully defending his 2018 Toronto title by beating Daniil Medvedev 6-3, 6-0 in Montreal.
It was surprisingly routine day at the office against an opponent who did not lose a single set en route to the championship match. Medvedev was also coming off a runner-up performance in Washington, D.C., so hopes–at least those of his own–were high heading into Sunday. Instead, the ninth-ranked Russian folded on the big stage and got swept aside by Nadal in one hour and 10 minutes.
“I did a lot of things well, changing directions, changing rhythms during the point,” Nadal assessed. “The slice worked well this afternoon. I played some high balls, then changed down the line. I think I played smart this afternoon.
The world No. 2 will not be playing at all in Cincinnati despite a relatively smooth path through Montreal in which he did not even play a semifinal contest. Gael Monfils withdrew from that scheduled showdown after outlasting Roberto Bautista Agut earlier on Friday in a rain-delayed quarterfinal clash.
Both Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer return this coming week after skipping the Rogers Cup. They are joined at the Cincinnati Masters by Andy Murray, who is making a highly-anticipated singles comeback.
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who ya got in Cincy?
Will we see another member of The Big Three holding the trophy? Since the Djoker and Fed are in the same half of the draw and Rafa withdrew, someone not belonging to this illustrious trio will at least get a shot in the final.
I loved your tweet re: The Big Three as granddads btw. You may have been too generous with Rafa’s hair, but the observation was spot on! The current crop of young guns may have aged quite a bit, too, when they finally manage to beat Fedalovic now and then 😉 Hopefully they won’t be passed by entirely like the lost generation of Dimitrov, Raonic, Nishikori et al who started to fade away before they ever had a chance to blossom.
Wise decision by Rafa to withdraw from Cincy.
I was happy watching how Rafa played, AFTER losing that crappy first set against Foggy. He managed to change things, played with varieties to beat a difficult opponent in Foggy. From then, I knew deep down that he would be able to beat Medvedev in the final.
Rafa simply has too many weapons for Medvedev to deal with. We can’t compare facing Rafa to facing a Thiem or a Khachanov, because both of them don’t have Rafa’s full arsenal of shots, nor his tennis IQ and experience.
How often we see people doubting Rafa’s abilities on non clay surfaces, and Rafa sometimes doesn’t help when he throws in some atrocious crappy tennis. But, Rafa being Rafa, is/was able to find his way out of tough situations so often, when he’s physically fit and mentally ready. It’s still the other two big three guys who give him the most problems out there, esp on non clay surfaces.
I do hope Medvedev learns from this loss, esp learning how to play well in windy conditions (something lacking in these young guys, they do not have enough experiences to deal with windy conditions imo).
I hope Medvedev goes deep in Cincy, I think he’s very much on his way to a year end TOP ten ranking for the first time in his career, well deserve imo.
Lucky, Rafa’s hardcourt prowess is sooo underrated, although his achievements have always been stellar. As of now Rafa won four hardcourt slams and umpteen Masters 1000 events on that surface (in 20113 he sweeped the entire American summer hardcourt season!) and many forget that he started winning titles on hardcourt very early in his career. As a teenager he scored his first win over Fed not on clay but on an American hardcourt. He achieved more on that surface than Murray who has been pretty good☺ Rafa is actually the third best hardcourt player of his generation. And he has beaten the best and the second best hardcourt players – Novak and Fed respectively – many times during his long career, although (unfortunately from a fan’s perspective 😉) not recently.
There were a few years during his slump years (2014 – 2016) where he failed to win any hardcourt titles, and the common perception was that he would not win titles on hardcourt anymore and that he would retreat into his clay castle. But Rafa has been especially successful on hardcourt ever since he came back in 2017 and immediately reached the final of the AO. Since then he has been in three hardcourt slam finals, winning one of them, and he won also three non-slam trophies. When he hasn’t been hurt he has always been a title contender in recent years. Rafa’s hardcourt prowess is so underrated because his great success on that surface gets completely overshadowed by his outrageous successes on clay. There are some experts who even make the slightly absurd claim that winning more FO titles hurt rather than help Rafa’s overall resummee.