Novak Djokovic already has seven titles this year and 66 overall.
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With that he hugged the stadium announcer to huge cheers from hugging spectators. His fourth Rogers Cup trophy will always be remembered as the one where he didn’t drop even a single set in the weeklong Toronto event.
Nishikori proved all of the doubters wrong with a 7-6 (6), 6-1 victory over the second seeded Wawrinka to reach his first career Rogers Cup finale and his third career Masters 1000 final.
“I’m glad that I managed to use that part of my game as a weapon today because Kei is one of the best returners in the game, he’s one of the quickest players, so I had to serve well”.
“I’m just very pleased with the way I played and with the way I feel-hopefully I can carry that into Rio”, he said. We are all here for the same thing.
Where Djokovic rarely erred, Monfils’ mistakes were costly – like the first-set overhand smash that landed on his own side of the net. He snapped that streak in toppling fifth-ranked Stan Wawrinka on Saturday afternoon to earn a spot in the final.
The latest victory was a 30th ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title for Djokovic, who also has 12 grand slam titles, including this year’s French Open and Australian Open. “So I hope I can get revenge this time”, Nishikori said.
Nishikori started to claw his way back, holding a pair of break points in his next return game, both of which Wawrinka erased with big serves.
“Both guys are playing great tennis right now, especially Monfils”, Nishikori said. He hadn’t been spectacular early in the Toronto tournament – showing blemishes in tiebreakers versus unseeded players Gilles Muller and Radek Stepanek and dropping a set to Tomas Berdych.
He now heads to Rio to try and claim a single piece of gold that is missing from his resume, and then on to Cincinnati to put to bed one more record: the complete set of Masters crowns.
Their absence left a void Djokovic elevated his game to fill. Djokovic calmly regains the advantage by winning three straight games over Nishikori. Errors were flying off the Swiss’ racquet and he gave up a break in his first service game.
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Djokovic attributes his steadily improving play to an early exit at Wimbledon, with the extra week off giving him time to regroup, fine-tune, and peak over the second half of the summer. “It’s a process like any other that has happened many times in my career, where I would start a tournament still feeling a little bit uncomfortable on the court and searching for my rhythm, and then, as the tournament goes on, I find that proper comfort level with shots, with the way I feel, with my mental attitude”.
“I took confidence into the second set, tried to be aggressive on returns and stood farther back than usual”.
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While star players like Nadal, Murray and Federer all withdrew from this year’s Rogers Cup, Djokovic chose to play.
