MONTREAL, 16 August 2005 — Top seed Rafael Nadal won his ninth title of the season on Sunday surviving a rain interruption to defeat Andre Agassi 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 at the Montreal Masters.
The 19-year-old French Open winner fulfilled his dream of playing the 35-year-old Agassi and made the most of his opportunity in a final lasting one hour and 58 minutes.
“Agassi is a great player,” said the winner, who fell to his knees in joy in victory. “He had a little bit of bad luck today.”
Agassi joked that he was glad to have played the youngster “before you retire.” It was Nadal’s third title in a row after Bastad and Stuttgart last month.
Nadal’s success matched the victory record set by Mats Wilander, who also won nine titles in 1983 as a teenager.
The Spaniard added his first career hardcourt crown to Masters Series trophies this year on clay in Monte Carlo and Rome.
The winner improved to 10-2 in career finals, his only two defeats occurring on cement in Auckland in 2004 and at the Miami Masters when he lost in five sets last March to Roger Federer.
Agassi, seeking a 61st career trophy after winning his last event in Los Angeles, lost a final for the first time in Canada to leave his record in title matches here at 3-1.
Nadal secured a first-set break of Agassi, an eight-time grand slam champion, in the fourth game before the veteran saved a set point to hang on for 3-5.
But a game later, the Spaniard sent Agassi wide on a return, which landed wide to end the set after 40 minutes.
Light rain then forced the pair off court for 58 minutes, with Agassi returning to level at a set apiece before losing in the third on two breaks. Nadal has won 65 matches this season including the last 16. He lost serve only twice on the way to the Montreal title.
Clijsters Clinches Second Los Angeles Title
In Los Angeles, Belgium’s Kim Clijsters wore down Slovakia’s Daniela Hantuchova 6-4 6-1 to win her second Los Angles Open title on Sunday, making the most of her return to a venue where she has enjoyed a great deal of success.
In capturing her fifth tournament of the year and fourth on US hard courts, Clijsters mixed up her attack and retrieved doggedly to withstand an inspired display from Hantuchova in the first set before completely dominating the second.
“Every time I come to California I feel so welcome and play some of my best tennis,” said the 22-year-old fifth seed, who has won four of her five 2005 titles in California.
“I became number one here two years ago and winning my second title here means so much to me.” After Clijsters broke her opponent to win the first set with an inside-out forehand winner, a deflated Hantuchova began littering the court with unforced errors. “I had lots of chances in the first set but I wasn’t holding serve the way I wanted to,” Hantuchova said.
“It was really disappointed that at 4-5, I went for some stupid shots. She just proved that she’s the toughest player out there.
“If you give her a few chances, she gets on top of you and it’s hard to stop her. It was really frustrating because I had to work so hard to move her around and then she gets it back. “It just kills me and I lost my head.”
A measure of Clijsters’s spectacular defense was none more evident than in the third game of the first set, when she scurried deep into the corner of the stadium to retrieve a Hantuchova overhead. The Belgian leapt high in the air and returned the smash with a one-handed backhand that forced the Slovakian ninth seed into an error. When she came down, Clijsters collided with a courtside palm tree and was fortunate to avoid a serious injury.
“I actually cut my leg,” the Belgian said with a laugh. Clijsters did not drop a set during the tournament and only lost 25 games in five matches.
She has won 31 of her last 32 matches on American soil dating back to her defeat in the 2003 US Open final to countrywoman Justine Henin-Hardenne.
