By Chris Oddo | Friday October 13 2017
Rafael Nadal came through another scintillating battle with Grigor Dimitrov, defeating the Bulgarian 6-4, 6-7(4), 6-3 at the Shanghai Rolex Masters to tie Andre Agassi for sixth place on the all-time ATP win list with 870.
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“Great level of tennis I think for both of us, so very happy the way that I played and I think [Grigor] played very well, too,” said Nadal.
Nadal had his hands full with Dimitrov for the second time in as many weeks. The Bulgarian battled back from 4-2 down in the second-set tiebreaker, winning the final five points to force a decider against Nadal for the third consecutive match.
Dimitrov even earned a break point with the players tied at 2-all in set two but Nadal held serve and capitalized on a poor Dimitrov game to break critically for 4-2 in the next game.
“Very pleased with the way that I managed to hold my serve during the whole match,” said Nadal. “And he was serving huge. It was so difficult to have chances on the return, but I was there mentally all the time.”
Nadal saved both break points he saved in the match and won a remarkable 71 percent of second serve points to keep Dimitrov at bay. The Spaniard improves to a tour-leading 64-9 on the season and he will bid to pass Agassi on the ATP win list on Saturday when he meets Marin Cilic in the semifinal.
Cilic eased past Albert Ramos-Vinolas, 6-3, 6-4, on Friday.
“Marin is playing great,” Nadal said. “He already played a lefty today so that will help him tomorrow.”
Nadal is just seven victories behind John McEnroe (877) on the ATP’s all-time win list. Only Jimmy Connors (1256), Roger Federer (1122), Ivan Lendl (1068) and Guillermo Vilas (929) have more.