The Canadian registered only his second win of his career against the Spaniard in Abu Dhabi.
Denis Shapovalov capped off his weekend at the Mubadala World Tennis Championship by beating the Mallorca native Rafael Nadal in a match that was decided by a match tiebreaker after the pair split the first two sets.
The Canadian hit 32 winners and served seven aces in a match that finished 6-7, 6-3, 10-6 while the Spaniard hit 44 unforced errors in the loss in his first event back since coming back from an injury.
“Every time I can step onto the pitch with someone like Rafa, it’s an honour, I played three great matches. I hope to be able to come here for many years to come. After three or four weeks of preparation for the new season, it is nice to see that my game is there. Even if I still have to work on a few areas.”
The world number 14 started brightly earning a chance to break in the first game of the match and broke to take an early 1-0 lead. It stayed on serve until 5-4 with the Toronto native serving for the first set but the Spaniard fought back and managed to break serve to avoid going down one set to love.
The first set was decided by a tiebreaker and again it was the world number six who seemed to have found his game at the right time and managed to snub Shapovalov and win the breaker 7-4 thus taking the first set 7-6.
The second set stayed on serve until 4-3 when the Canadian earned another breakpoint and broke Nadal’s serve with a powerful one-handed backhand winner down the line and served out the second set.
The match was decided by a 10 point match tiebreak and fresh off winning the second set Shapovalov seemed to have the momentum and at 2-1 broke serve this time with his forehand to take a 3-1 lead.
That seemed to be enough for the world number 14 as he was able to serve out the match and the breaker winning it 10-6.