Rafael Nadal produced a dominant performance to beat Canada's Milos Raonic and win the Rogers Cup in Montreal. The Spaniard needed just 68 minutes to win 6-2 6-2 and clinch his eighth title of the season. Nadal has won 48 of 51 matched since coming back from injury in February but he suffered a shock first-round loss to Steve Darcis at Wimbledon. He did manage to win his eighth French Open though.
Milos Raonic, currently ranked 13th in the world, was the first Canadian in the tournament's final since Robert Bedard in 1958. Nadal was not to be denied though, he dropped just one single point on serve in the first set while Raonic had a poor first-serve percentage, just 50%. Nadal picked up two breaks and wrapped up the first set easily.
Raonic then double-faulted at break point down early in the second set and the match was as good as over. The win moves Nadal back up to number three in the world rankings and he has the chance of taking back the world number one spot by the end of the year.
"I feel I have an advantage, but not enough to say that I am the favourite," Nadal said. "On this kind of surface, Novak is really good. There remains three Masters 1000s, one grand slam, World Tour Finals - more favourable surfaces for him than for me. So we are talking about 6,500 points. We have to realise how many points I have to win to be number one. I think I will not be number one if I have less than 10,000 points at the end of the season. Today I have 8,000. I need to win minimum 2,000 more. That's very difficult in this part of the season, but I'm going to try."
This week Nadal will play in Cincinnati, also on hard court, before taking the show to the US Open. Here are the outright odds for the Cincinnati tournament at Bet365:
Novak Djokovic - 5/4
Andy Murray - 7/2
Rafael Nadal - 9/2
Roger Federer - 8/1
Juan Martin Del Potro - 9/1
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