Rafael Nadal concedes that his defeat to Canadian teen Denis Shapovalov in Montreal last week was a tough pill to swallow but that he’s ready to kick off his Cincinnati campaign on Wednesday.
The soon-to-be world No. 1 opens against former top-10er Richard Gasquet in the second round in Ohio, looking to extend his perfect 14-0 win-loss record against the Frenchman.
Nadal, who can win a record-breaking 31st Masters 1000 title this week, says he needed “a couple of days” to shake off his shock defeat to the 18-year-old Shapovalov in the Montreal third round. Had he reached the semi-finals in Canada, he would have secured the No. 1 ranking last week.
But the Spaniard’s loss to the 143rd-ranked youngster did not derail him much as Nadal is guaranteed a return to the top of the rankings on Monday, thanks to Roger Federer’s withdrawal from Cincinnati.
“Of course was negative everything,” Nadal said of his loss in Montreal. “I cannot say I take a positive thing, because for me it was an opportunity to go far in the tournament and I was not playing bad. I felt I was practicing well.
“It’s true that my opponent played so well, that’s the real thing that I said immediately there, just congrats to him, he played fantastic and with the right determination. But at the same time I felt that I had much more opportunities than him.
“I had break points in the third, I had 3-0 in the tiebreak, a lot of chances during all the match. Too many chances and if you don’t convert those chances then you are in trouble. Of course was a tough loss when you have too many opportunities.”
Roger Federer broke the record this week for number of weeks spent in top 10 (all time)
1 Federer 734
2 Agassi 733
3 Nadal 603
4 Sampras 584— Nick Lester (@nicklester) August 16, 2017
Nadal is aware that the next few months will be a see-saw battle between him and Federer as they both vie for the year-end No. 1 ranking, which is why he felt Montreal was a missed opportunity to pull away further from the Swiss in the standings.
“It was a tough loss because being in semi-finals I would have got back to No. 1, and it was an opportunity for me to add a lot of points to the computer for the rankings and to fight for a very important event, so it was a tough loss but that’s sport,” explained the 31-year-old Mallorcan.
“In our sport every week everybody loses, it’s not like in golf you finish third, you finish top-10, or you finish 25th or second. Here you lose in semi-finals, you lose. You lose in second round, you lose. It’s a different story, and the word is important.”
Still Nadal is not reading too much into the defeat and feels ready to contend for a second Cincinnati title of his career.
“I have been playing great in Montreal. I was practicing very well, and here I think I am practicing well too. I think I’m ready to compete again. It was one of these kind of matches that you don’t play very well, but still you should win, that’s what happened, and sometimes in the tournament you have these kind of matches. And if you are able to win these kind of matches then everything can chance.
“Of course it affected me, it was a tough loss for me and of course it takes a couple of days to be with positive energy again. But here I am and I am practicing well, I had a great practice today, I have another chance of practice tomorrow and I’m excited about playing here,” he told reporters in Cincinnati on Monday.
“I’m having a great season, it’s not that I’m playing a bad season and now I still lost a match I should win. No, I’m playing a great season, I lost a match, that was an accident, and I have to keep going. I have an important event here in Cincinnati and the US Open is in two weeks.”
Tuesday’s men’s action at the Western & Southern Open saw Nick Kyrgios maintain his clean record against David Goffin by defeating the ninth-seede Belgian 6-2, 6-3, while Argentina’s Juan Martin del Potro upset 10th-seeded Tomas Berdych 3-6, 7-6 (1), 6-0.
