Saw both Federer´s and Nadal´s match. Federer´s was a nightmare, he could not put a backhand in court. The good thing is that he kept trying until the end (and the bh finally became half-decent in the beginning of the third). Also good is that the understood that he was losing (gasp) from the back court and started to attack the net -- an adjustment that won him the match. But he played far worst in this match than in the losses he had this year (that I happened to watch entirely too).
Nadal, ironically, played better than Federer, even if obviously not great. Shapovalov did what you need to do to beat him -- hit like there is no tomorrow. Nadal waited for him to lose by himself, it didn´t happen. He is smart enough not to panic when things are not going that well, usually that calm wins him a lot of matches, but not this one. What people may forget is that he lost the second set on a very lucky shot from Shapovalov -- the kid mishit the return, it still got in, Nadal tracked the ball and went for a winner and it got out by inches. If that mishit ended like most mishits do we probably would be talking about the Fedal final now. Shapovalov actually raised his level by a long margin in third -- for example his backhand became way more solid. Credit to him.
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