Most things, win or lose, seem fairly simple to Rafael Nadal. When he wins, he played better, he was confident and he was feeling good on the court. When he loses, it's usually the opposite – his opponent played better than him and perhaps Nadal wasn't full of belief. Such was the case on Friday, Nadal said, when Dominic Thiem snapped the Spaniard's 50-set and 21-match win streaks in the Mutua Madrid Open quarter-finals. [ALSO LIKE] The Spaniard lacked confidence at times, and Thiem lifted his level in the big moments to beat Nadal for the third time in their ninth FedEx ATP Head2Head matchup. View Nadal-Thiem FedEx ATP Head2Head Series “I am playing against one of the best players...
#NextGenATP Denis Shapovalov arrived at the Mutua Madrid Open without a clay-court match win on the ATP World Tour. Yet, five days after taking the court at the Caja Mágica for the first time, the Canadian defeated British No. 1 Kyle Edmund 7-5, 6-7(6), 6-4 to advance to the semi-finals in Madrid, his second appearance in the final four of an ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event (also 2017 Montreal). "I'm happy again to be in the semi-finals," Shapovalov said. "I never knew when my next time being in a semis would be. I'm more than thrilled to be there. Hopefully I can go even further." One year ago this week, Shapovalov was the fifth-ranked Canadian, sitting at No. 186...
Rafael Nadal could soon have a chance at revenge against Dominic Thiem, who snapped the Spaniard's 50-sets and 21-match clay-court win streaks on Friday during their Mutua Madrid Open quarter-final. Nadal and Thiem could meet again next week in the Rome quarter-finals, should the seeds hold at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia, the season's third and final ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournament on clay, which starts Monday. View Draw The top-seeded Nadal, after a first-round bye, could meet countryman Fernando Verdasco and then possibly #NextGenATP Canadian Denis Shapovalov, who's in the Madrid quarter-finals, or 15th seed Tomas Berdych. Thiem will face either home favourite Fabio Fognini or Frenchman Gael Monfils in the second round. The sixth-seeded Austrian and 12th seed...
Watch Dominic Thiem overcome a barrage of powerful groundstrokes from the racquet of Rafael Nadal before sprinting to a drop shot and placing a backhand down the line for a winner. Watch live tennis at tennistv.com.
Dominic Thiem ended Rafael Nadal's 21-match and 50-sets winning streaks on clay — in addition to his latest six-week reign at No. 1 in the ATP Rankings — on Friday at the Mutua Madrid Open. As a result of Nadal’s quarter-final exit, Roger Federer will return to the summit of men’s professional tennis on Monday for the 309th week of his career. Three weeks on from a humbling loss to Nadal at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters, Thiem played with greater discipline and capitalised on a number of errors from the five-time Madrid champion to triumph 7-5, 6-3 for a place in Saturday’s semi-finals. “I had to play an extraordinary match, and that's what I did," said Thiem. "It takes a...