Shanghai, China: World No 1 Rafael Nadal is in sight of achieving something unique this season when the last leg of the ATP World Tour pans out by the end of this month.
There are just six tournaments remaining on the Tour, excluding the season-ending Barclays World Tour Final in London. Three of these events — all 250 points tournaments — got under way on Monday, namely the Kremlin Cup in Moscow, the Stockholm Open and the Vienna Open.
Next week will be the two 500 point events, namely the Valencia Open and the Swiss Indoors Open in Basel, where Nadal is playing. The ninth and final Masters 1000 — the BNP Parisbas Masters — starts on October 28 and Nadal will be aiming for an incredible sixth crown from the nine this season.
“Winning six Masters in one year is a joke,” he said. “It is too much. It is very difficult to do that, but I have already played in seven finals and that’s much more than what I ever thought.
“I am going to Paris with motivation to keep playing well and keep enjoying the season. At the end, the rest of the season is to enjoy what I had as what happened to me this season is just very emotional and fantastic.”
Nadal is at the top of the Masters 1000 title list with 26 crowns followed by Roger Federer (21), Andre Agassi (17) and Djokovic (14).
“What remains of this season is to play with the right attitude, positive, try to keep playing well, try to arrive to the last tournament of the year with better feelings than what I had in the past, and try to give myself an opportunity,” he said.
