Nadal sets up showdown with birthday boy Tsitsipas
FEU coach George Pascua opted to and third sets but was forced to call on his The Lady Tams took four of the
stayed in control with key hits from Ebon and Guino-o to pull away at
dump to make it four-point game, FEU gained on its rivals’ back-toback attack errors and after another hit and Perpetual made another
The loss was Perpetual’s fourth against a win, virtually booting out the Lady Altas from the semis race in the mid-season conference of the league organized by Sports Vision and backed
- ny Gaviola and Jowie Versoza scored 13 and 10 points, respectively, for Perpetual, which sorely missed injured
In men’s play, National U demolished Far Eastern U, 25-18, 25-19, 25-22,
The Bulldogs braved heavy downpour sterling game from Bryan Bagunas, who Malabungan backed him up with a
Peter Quiel had eight points while JP Bugaoan and Mark Calado scored seven markers apiece for the
Earlier, La Salle ended a four-game skid with a 25-23, 25-18, 25-21 victory
Rafael Nadal beat Karen Khachanov 7-6 (3), 6-4 on Saturday (Sunday in Manila) to set up a final with birthday boy Stefano Tsitsipas at the Toronto Masters.
The Spanish icon will try on Sunday to spoil the 20th celebrations of the Greek youngster who reached the second final of his career by beating Wimbledon finalist Kevin Anderson 6-7 (4), 6-4, 7-6 (7), saving a match point in victory.
World number one Nadal won a battle of the tennis generations with Tsitsipas last April in the Barcelona title match.
“To win this match is important, it’s very important to be in the final of Toronto,”Nadal said after running his season record to 39-3 in a match which ended after midnight local time.
“I’m motivated every day when I wake up, there is always something to improve,”said the 32-year-old.
“I want to stay around for as long as possible (in tennis).”
Top seed Nadal edged out the first set in a tiebreaker after a two-hour, rain-delayed start.
In the second, Nadal went about finishing up his business with a break in the third game and on his way to the win in just over an hour and a quarter.
Nadal leads the all-time list of Masters 1000 titles on 32.
He will be playing his 116th ATP final and stands two wins away from 80 trophies.
Tsitsipas, who will move to at least 15th in the rankings, became the first man since Jo-Wilfried Tsonga here in 2014 to defeat four Top 10 players at the same event.
He dispatched Dominic Thiem, Novak Djokovic, and Alexander Zverev before downing Anderson.
He will be the first unseeded finalist in Canada since Nicolas Kiefer in 2008.
“It feels like I’m playing Davis Cup and everyone is backing me up and they’re so supportive,”Tsitsipas said.
“Four wins against top 10 players. I would never imagine that I could pull this out in a single tournament.
“I don’t know if I got lucky with all those players, but somehow it happened that I played four top 10 and managed to beat them, which is a huge achievement for me and for my game this week.”