{"id":49828,"date":"2013-08-11T04:52:44","date_gmt":"2013-08-11T02:52:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/?p=49828"},"modified":"2013-08-11T06:21:28","modified_gmt":"2013-08-11T04:21:28","slug":"novak-falls-to-rafa-in-montreal-semis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/novak-falls-to-rafa-in-montreal-semis\/","title":{"rendered":"Montreal: Novak falls in semi-final thriller"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Montreal:<\/p>\n

World no.1 and two-time defending champion (three overall)\u00a0Novak Djokovic failed in attempt to reach the 2013 Rogers Cup<\/a> final.<\/p>\n

The fourth-seeded Spaniard Rafael Nadal ended the Serb\u2019s Canada Open campaign with a 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (2) win in two hours and 28 minutes at Uniprix Stadium.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was the pair’s 36th career encounter,\u00a0which ties Lendl-McEnroe for most meetings in the Open Era. Nadal now leads their H2H 21-15.<\/p>\n

Nadal started very strong and broke Novak in the very first game. The top seed was broken once again in the seventh game falling behind, 2-5. He managed to break Rafa once, when serving for the set, but the Manacor native closed it at second attempt.<\/p>\n

Nole bounced back in the second set. He needed only one break of serve to take it 6-3 and force the match into a decider.<\/p>\n

The third set went to a tie-break as both players held their serves. Nadal raced to a 6-0 lead. Novak saved two match points with winners, but then hit\u00a0a forehand long and\u00a0the Spaniard clinched it 7-2.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very close match,\u201d<\/strong> Djokovic said. \u201cThere were very few points that decided the winner. Can’t really pick one moment. I had my chances. He had his chances. I guess at the end he played better\u2026Whenever we play against each other, it’s always a thrilling match for crowd to see. We are both competing at the high level. We both want to win these matches.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Match statistics<\/span>: aces (8-7), double faults (7-1), winners (27-21), unforced errors (44-36), total points won (95-97).<\/p>\n

Nadal will be playing local favourite Milos Raonic in the finals, biding to win his third crown.<\/p>\n

Novak is heading to Cincinnati, where he will play at the Western & Southern Open<\/a> next week (11-18 August).<\/strong><\/p>\n

He will attempt to complete a sweep of the ATP Masters 1000 tournaments and become the first singles player to win all of the ATP World Tour\u2019s nine premier events.<\/p>\n

Photo: Getty Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The fourth-seeded Spaniard Rafael Nadal sealed a 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (2) win over the top seed and three-time champion in two hours and 28 minutes to advance in Montreal final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":49827,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101012177,101011259,101011261,101010433],"class_list":["post-49828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-atp-1000-en","tag-montreal-2013-en","tag-rogers-cup-en","tag-semifinal-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49828"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49834,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49828\/revisions\/49834"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}