Nadal hails Spain heroes as he heads for top spot

Published on Monday 28 July 2008 23:49

RAFAEL Nadal hailed a great year for Spanish sport after putting himself on the brink of officially becoming the world's No1 tennis player.

Nadal beat Germany's Nicolas Kiefer 6-3 6-2 in the final of the Rogers Cup on Sunday to seal his fifth consecutive tournament victory, a run which has included titles on the grass of Wimbledon and the French Open on clay.

That moved the 22-year-old to within 300 ranking points of world No1 Roger Federer, and he will have the chance to claim top spot at the Cincinnati Masters this week.

Nadal's form comes against a backdrop of Spanish success throughout sport, with the national football team having won Euro 2008 this summer and Carlos Sastre's victory in the Tour de France.

Nadal said: "This year we are doing a lot of things very well and we have a lot of very good sportsmen in Spain.

"We're very happy for everything because we've won in the last months a lot of important things for our country: the Tour, the European Championships, Formula One driver Fernando Alonso has been doing very well the last couple of years, Roland Garros, Wimbledon.

"Congratulations to Carlos. The people in Spain are very happy about our sportsmen. I am a sportsman, and I'm very happy another Spanish person is winning a very important title – the most important title in cycling."

Nadal was particularly pleased at his hard-court win in Toronto, proving he has mastered all surfaces as he closes in on the top spot.

"Every tournament is very difficult," he said. "I won here in Canada in 2005, so winning the title here is very, very important for me – especially because this year, I hadn't won a tournament yet on hard courts.

"Right now I have five titles in a row on three different surfaces, so that's very, very good for me."

Nadal has no time to recover as he will be in action again this week at the next Masters Series event in Cincinnati.

A tournament win could be good enough to see Nadal finally crowned No1 –depending on how Federer does.

Meanwhile, Melanie South bowed out of the Rogers Cup in Montreal in the first round. The Surrey player, ranked 136th in the world, lost 6-3, 6-7, 6-0 to France's Marion Bartoli at the Uniprix Stadium.