Nadal Serves Notice of his Intent
Richard Jago, The Guardian
August 15th, 2005
The superkid defeated the legend here yesterday and began clocking up more ominous statistics suggesting that he is the player who will eventually challenge Roger Federer's preeminence.
Rafael Nadal's 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 win over Andre Agassi earned him his first Masters Series title as top seed, the ninth title of his career, the most by a teenager in a season, and, most significant of all, his first on a hard court. It signalled that the 19-year-old French Open champion is not just for clay.
Soon indeed he may be a man for all surfaces, perhaps for all seasons. "But I am not predicting anything - I have a lot of time," he said. He may not need it, even to catch up with the great Federer.
This was a truly memorable match because both played well together, Agassi doing everything in his mazy repertoire to find ways of prising open doors, and Nadal stretching to new widths and lengths his superelastic containment.
Eventually the 35-year-old American was lured into overhitting two or three times on big points and that was what did for him. But it was also fascinating because of the disparity of age, the greatest in an ATP final since 1979. "It was great to play you before you retired," Agassi joked later.
Simultaneously another teenager, Andy Murray, was winning his second Challenger event of the summer by beating Alejandro Falla of Colombia 7-6, 6-3 in Binghamton, New York.
The success should edge the 18-year-old towards the 140 mark in the world rankings - still outside what will probably be necessary for direct entry to the US Open in two weeks time, although the Scot has a chance of picking up more points at the first Masters Series event of his career, starting today in Cincinnati.
Late on Saturday night Greg Rusedski's best run in a major tournament for six years was ended by Agassi, who had had yet another injection to his painful hip. Despite a 6-4, 6-4 defeat, Rusedski was still celebrating the four wins which will have brought him much closer to a US Open seeding.
**Please do not reproduce without giving credit to the original source and VamosRafael.com.**
Return to VamosRafael.com.
Return to VamosRafael.com Articles.