No. 1 seed Nadal withdraws from Western & Southern Open

Greek teenager Stefanos Tsitsipas slayed another tennis giant on Saturday, saving a match point as he toppled big-serving Kevin Anderson 6-7 (4-7), 6-4, 7-6 (9-7) in a thriller to set up a Rogers Cup final against top seed Rafa Nadal.

“It’s been an fantastic week for me”, he said.

Nadal hails “ugly” and important Rogers Cup win.

Tsitsipas won the first two points of the game and converted his second break-point opportunity to get back on serve.

The second set looked to be going much the same way until Tsitsipas mounted a late charge that briefly shifted momentum in his favour.

“There have been many years without coming back to Toronto and I miss this tournament a lot”, Nadal said.

“But that’s how it is”. “I just went all the way also on her forehand, short, cross, long, everything”.

“Everybody gets tight at some moments”.

The win gave the 32-year-old Spaniard a record-extending 33rd trophy at the elite Masters level as well as his 80th title.

The 80th career title for the world number one, Nadal was a gracious victor, who had only praise and encouragement for his opponent, 12 years his junior. Querry closed out the 2-hour, 7-minute match with an ace that survived a challenge by Isner.

“It’s an incredible feeling to be able to talk again at this ceremony as a victor”, Halep said.

“It’s nice to be back and I hope to have a good tournament”.

However, Pouille held on to maintain his advantage and then served out the match comfortably to secure his first professional victory over Murray in five meetings.

Tsitsipas broke and forced a second-set tiebreaker, where Nadal steadied the ship and elevated his game once again. His match over Zverev was most impressive as he was down 6-3, 5-2 and saved two mach points. He fought to multiple break point opportunities to take the 2-1 advantage in the opening set.

Nadal was defending third round points from the tournament past year.

“He was normal like all of us and he managed to become this beast, this monster that he is today”, Tsitsipas said.

The American returned the compliment. “I mean, to me, it seemed like completely out of any world what he was doing on the court”. “It feels like I’m never losing it”.

Since turning 30, Federer’s only played both Canada and Cincinnati once in 2014.