They say success breeds success. So does stability, according to Rafael Nadal.

The 34-time ATP Masters 1000 champion says that sticking with his trusted team over his 16-year career has underpinned his on- and off-court achievements.

Long-term relationships with coaches Toni Nadal, Francisco Roig, Carlos Moya, physio Rafael Maymo, manager Carlos Costa and publicist Benito Perez-Barbadillo have been a hallmark of his career. And, of course, his long-term partner Xisca Perello and family are never far from his side.

Importantly, he has nurtured an environment in which team members feel confident to speak truth to power, even when it may not be advice he wants to hear. That, Nadal says, is a point of difference with many of his rivals and their coaching relationships.

“Tennis has a problem that normally the player pays the coach and the physio, the team. That sometimes creates an atmosphere that the people who are around the player are a little bit more scared about saying the real things to the player,” Nadal said.

“The player needs to give them the confidence that they can tell you what is the real thing for them, not what you want to hear all the time. In my opinion, it is difficult to build that in a short period of time.

“If you have the same team for a long time, of course they know that they are not in danger if they say one thing or another thing.”

The top seed and defending champion will again lean on his team this week at the Coupe Rogers, where he must reach the final to prevent Roger Federer from displacing him as World No. 2 when the new ATP Rankings are released on Monday.

But whether his outlook on commitment to team will work for others, Nadal was somewhat non-committal.

“I don’t know what the new guys thinks about it. Times change. I can’t say what works for me going to work for them.

“But for me personally, to have a good group of people around me helps me a lot for my education, for my preparation… growing during all these years.

“Important thing is to have a group of people around you that they feel free enough to tell you if you are doing the things right or not right, no? When you are changing people around you it very often is difficult to find this confidence.”

The stage was set for Denis Shapovalov to begin another memorable Montreal run on Wednesday. The #NextGenATP Canadian had the crowd behind him at the Coupe Rogers – a given in Canada – and a Top 5 opponent in Dominic Thiem, who hadn’t played a hard-court match since March and had been winless in Canada (0-5).

Thiem, however, had his own ATP Masters 1000 run in mind. The Austrian held off Shapovalov and his cadre of fans on Court Central 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 to end his winless streak at Canadian Masters 1000 events.

“Every win is special in these tournaments because it’s only against great opponents,” Thiem said. “Against Denis, it was special because he’s a local hero. All the crowd was supporting him, so it was tough.”

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The second seed saved four of five break points and benefitted from some untimely unforced errors from Shapovalov, who has lost six of his past seven matches. The 20-year-old double faulted to get broken at 4-4 in the opening set, but Shapovalov came back strong in the second, ripping forehands and engaging the crowd with fist pumps.

The two were on serve at 3-4 in the third but Shapovalov dumped an overhead into the net to give Thiem the break and an opportunity to serve out the match. The Austrian pushed his winning streak to five after taking home the Generali Open crown on Saturday in Kitzbuhel.

“It’s never easy, the smashes. Maybe it was a little bit windy. Already the lights were on. These kinds of smashes, especially in a tough situation where you’re under lot of pressure, they look way easier than they are,” Thiem said.

The BNP Paribas Open titlist will next meet Croatian Marin Cilic, the 14^th seed. The Croatian beat Australian John Millman 6-3, 6-4.

Cilic reached his second quarter-final of the season last week at the Citi Open in Washington, D.C. (l. to Medvedev). The Croatian won the 2016 Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati for his lone Masters 1000 title.

Eighth seed Daniil Medvedev routed Brit Kyle Edmund 6-3, 6-0 to maintain his high level on the North American hard courts. The Russian was perfect on break points, saving all three he faced and converting all five on Edmund’s serve. Medvedev made the Citi Open final on Sunday, falling to Nick Kyrgios in two tie-break sets. 

He will next meet Chilean Cristian Garin, who improved to 2-0 at the Masters 1000 level with a 6-3, 6-4 upset against 12th seed John Isner of the U.S. Garin, a two-time ATP Tour titlist this season, played a bit like Isner, winning 89 per cent of his first-serve points (33/37) and saving all five break points.

John Isner is a massive Carolina Hurricanes fan, and the American No. 1 loves hockey in general. But the 15-time ATP Tour champion has signed as a free agent with an additional team, at least for this week.

At the Coupe Rogers on Wednesday, Montreal Canadiens Senior Vice President for Public Affairs and Communications Paul Wilson presented Isner with his own Canadiens jersey, customised with his name and the number ‘1’ on the back. Although the Hurricanes will always be the American’s favourite team, Isner was thrilled to be made an honourary Canadien.

“I think it’s fantastic, especially in a city like this that just loves their sports,” Isner told ATPTour.com. “They support this tournament so incredibly well. The men, we come here every other year and they get really, really excited about it. But this city’s true love is the Montreal Canadiens, so [I’m] very honoured to wear that.”

That’s not the only reason this ATP Masters 1000 tournament has been special, though. Isner has had two NHL players in Montreal supporting him: current Vancouver Canuck Antoine Roussel and recently-retired Alexandre Burrows.

“It’s very cool. I think in general hockey players really enjoy tennis. I enjoy hockey so much, so through that whole connection I’ve gotten to know a lot of very cool NHL players, a lot of them that I call my friends now,” Isner said. “Same thing here in Montreal, I have two buddies here… I’ve gotten to know them pretty well and they’re here supporting, so it’s very cool.”

Isner battled through a tight first-round match on Tuesday against Aussie Jordan Thompson 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(6) after two hours and 19 minutes. And on Wednesday he’ll face Chilean Cristian Garin. It doesn’t hurt that he has professional athletes to motivate him in his corner.

“Those guys are the toughest of the tough. Having a guy like Antoine sit and watch me play, I tell myself I need to stay focussed and stay as tough as possible out here because that is what these guys do all the time,” Isner said. “They’re taking pucks to the faces, they’re throwing gloves around. We’re not playing a contact sport. Yes, it’s hot out there and it’s tough, but I need to show as much mental resolve on the court as I can. I think I did a little in my match, so having him there helped.”

In the first installment of the Challenger Chronicles, we feature Norbert Gombos.

In 2019, no player has won more matches on the ATP Challenger Tour than Slovakia’s Norbert Gombos. At the age of 28, Gombos is enjoying a breakout campaign behind a staggering 36-16 record and consecutive titles in Winnipeg, Canada and his hometown of Bratislava. His victory in his home capital was a special one, with friends and family in attendance.

Gombos’ career has had its fair share of successes and struggles, including surgery in 2016, a Top 100 breakthrough in 2017, a dip in form in 2018 and resurgence in recent months. After seven years fighting on the Challenger circuit, Gombos is finally reaping the rewards as he sets his sights on a transition to the ATP Tour.

It is all coming together for the Slovakian. He is fresh off a first tour-level quarter-final at the Citi Open in Washington, rising to No. 118 in the ATP Rankings on Monday.

So, how did Gombos get here? Where did he get his start? What is important to him in life? We spoke to the Slovakian…

Norbert, it’s been an incredible summer for you. How do you think you performed over the past month and how happy are you with your game right now?
I am very happy with my game. Last year I was struggling the whole year. Winning those titles [in Bratislava and Winnipeg] for me is so important and finally I feel that I can play better and better and can start thinking about the Top 100 so I am really happy about it.

It’s been a busy stretch for you on all surfaces. How have you managed your summer schedule?
It all started on clay in Bratislava, but it was actually not in my plans at first. I wanted to prepare for Wimbledon by competing in Ilkley. The cut-off was so strong, so I had to play in Bratislava. It did not matter too much as I could play at the club where I practise throughout the year and that made me happy. I was so happy to win in my hometown in front of my family, friends and coaches.

I went to Wimbledon straight after, with no preparation on grass before the first match. I arrived at three in the morning, practised for 30 minutes and went straight on court to play the match. It was actually pretty impressive that I played well. Right after Wimbledon I went home to prepare for the hard-court season and travelled alone to Winnipeg. I won the tournament by myself with no help which was very good for me.

What was the experience like to win a title at home? You rarely get to play in front of friends and family.
I was pretty happy about it. I practise there and it is a great club and they did a good job with the courts and overall organisation of the tournament. It was great for me to win the title there because a lot of people in Bratislava thought that my tennis was over after the last couple of years when I was not playing well. That made me more motivated as I really wanted to show them that I can play really good tennis.

The tournament was very strong with players like Klizan as well as other Slovakian Davis Cup players, so it was really special for me to win. My whole team, family and friends that have not seen me play before were extremely happy for me and I was so happy to win a tournament after a year and a half.

There are a lot of great champions from Slovakia. When you were growing up, did you feel the strong tennis tradition there and did that inspire you?
When I was younger, I did not follow tennis too much. My father put me on the court and said ‘you will play tennis’. He was really sporty so that is how I ended up in tennis. Years later, I was following a lot more tennis, especially Davis Cup. Our best Slovakian players like Karol Kucera, Karol Beck and Dominik Hrbaty made the final so it was a huge achievement for our country. I was more motivated after that to be like them and to compete against those players.

I was not very good in juniors. I was losing a lot of first rounds but my father was always seeing potential in me and supporting me all the time. I was so motivated to show everyone that I can play on the international stage. I was getting a bit older and started to play more Challengers and it went from there. I am so happy that I can play so well and I hope that the results will come.

You had surgery in 2016 and then broke inside the Top 100 the year after. But last year was very difficult for you. What has the past four years been like with all the ups and downs?
It was difficult for me when I had my surgery. I lost a lot of time and I was losing all the time in the first round and dropped out of the Top 300. But I started to play well at the end of the year and won some Challengers. In two and a half months I moved from outside the Top 300 to inside the Top 130 and a few months later I broke into the Top 100. It was one of the best moments of my career. I could play the biggest tournaments and for me it was an amazing experience.

But the problem was, I did not defend my points after that and I dropped a bit. My game was not going well and I was expecting too much from myself all the time. I was very frustrated and low. As you can see, there were many highs and lows. And then this year I changed my coach and became more motivated again. We made a big improvement in my game and I am playing great again. It is great to be thinking about the Top 100 again.

What has been the biggest difference from last year to this year?
I am looking at things from another angle. Last year I was always thinking about how I was playing when I was Top 100. I was thinking about the past a lot. Now I am focused on the present and always thinking to improve my game. That is the main thing that I changed in my game and my thinking. I am focusing on myself and to be better and better every day.

You are working with Ilya Marchenko’s old coach, right? Does he get a lot of credit for this improvement? He helped Ilya have a great run in his career too.
Yes, Tibor Toth is the Davis Cup coach as well. We started to work together in November last year. He has so much experience. He used to coach Dominik Hrbaty and Sergiy Stakhovsky too. I trust him completely and doing everything that he says. It is a very good way for me and hopefully I will do better and better results.

You were talking about being injured and dropping out of the Top 100 before finding your form again. What do you feel are the biggest challenges of being a professional tennis player?
I am so motivated to play ATP Tour events and it is not easy to get there. The biggest challenge is to get there and compete at these big tournaments against the best players. I would like to keep improving and get to play those tournaments regularly. I have to fight for every point, every result and hopefully play there in the future.

It is a new level from Challengers to the tour-level. The players get better and better and you have to keep working and improve your game.

What would you say to young Slovakian kids who want to become professional players like yourself?
To work a lot. Have a lot of motivation and just do your best. Try and win as many much as they can and do not be too hard on yourself. The results will come if you keep working hard. Put everything into your game and the results will come.

Are you married?
No, I am not. I have had a girlfriend for over five years.

Does she travel with you?
Sometimes. She works so she cannot travel all the time. It is not very often but it is really good for me when she is at the tournaments. Players love to have family with them. It is a lonely sport and it is important to have people with you. It is great to have your family supporting you and that is why a lot of players perform really well at their home tournaments.

Your countryman Andrei Martin mentioned that there is a floorball league among Slovakian players. Is that something you play? What other sports do you enjoy outside of tennis?
They do, but I do not play because I am not very good at floorball. I love ice hockey and I follow NHL matches as well, but I support my country more than anything else. In the NHL my favourite team is the Chicago Blackhawks. I have not been to a game yet. I have only watched Florida Panthers play live. I hope one day I can go to Chicago and see a game.

If you said Marin Cilic’s 2018 season was one of the best of his career, there would be little room for arguing otherwise. The Croat, who is the No. 14 seed at this week’s Coupe Rogers, reached a career-high No. 3 in the ATP Rankings, advanced to his third Grand Slam final at the Australian Open, claimed an ATP 500 title at the Fever-Tree Championships, qualified for the Nitto ATP Finals and led Croatia to the Davis Cup title.

But the 30-year-old struggled to maintain his momentum. He is currently World No. 16, which is nothing to sniff at, but Cilic has not made it past the quarter-finals in 12 tournaments, dropping from the Top 15 for the first time since August 2014.

“My first six months were not great. I felt just a bit drained from the season before, finishing late, it was very emotional with the Davis Cup, winning it in 2018,” Cilic told ATPTour.com. “We put a lot of emotions into that and just maybe my body felt a little bit tired from everything.”

A knee injury hindered him at the Australian Open, and also kept him out of the ATP 500 event at Rotterdam in February, which made getting the season rolling even more difficult. But Cilic is showing signs of progress, ousting in-form #NextGenATP star Felix Auger-Aliassime at the Citi Open before dropping a tight two-setter against Daniil Medvedev, who later made the final.

“Now I’m feeling really good. I had some time off back at home, enjoyed the Croatian coast [after Wimbledon], enjoyed my time and practised really well. I just felt I played quite good tennis in Washington and I’m hoping I can continue this really good throughout the summer.”

Cilic has finished inside the year-end Top 10 of the ATP Rankings in four of the past five years, so there was never a question of what the Croat is capable of. But perhaps some R&R and an additional voice in his corner will spur a turnaround.

The veteran began a trial period with former World No. 6 and 15-time ATP Tour champion Wayne Ferreira during the grass-court season. And the South African is not concerned about his charge ever finding his top level again.

“It’s not an issue that he’s going to get it back. The only difficulty is that the lower his [ATP] Ranking is, the harder your draw is, so you have to beat a lot better players earlier on,” Ferreira told ATPTour.com. “You have to beat better guys more regularly. He’ll get it back, he just needs to build on that. After last week, this will be a telling week. If he plays the same way as he did last week, then he’s back on. And he’ll be absolutely fine. Then it’s just having those wins and getting his Ranking back up and hopefully getting the Ranking to the level to where the matches are a little bit easier for him in earlier rounds.”

Ferreira has not been in the coaching game on the ATP Tour before. In fact, this is his first job working with a professional since retiring almost 15 years ago. But Cilic’s agent gave him a call ‘out of the blue’, and they’ve been off ever since, on a trial at least through the US Open. While there are some small things Ferreira is tinkering with in the Croat’s game, he says there is truly one key: confidence.

“He’s struggling a little bit confidence-wise. He hasn’t had the best year of results, so the first thing is trying to get him out of a little bit of a slump, making himself feel good, and from there building on some other things to improve,” Ferreira said. “I think he did a great job last week. I was very impressed with how he played. It was very positive again and he was doing the right things. But at the same time we’ve been working on a few things like on the serve and with a couple of things on the groundstrokes to try to help as well. You’ve always got to keep thinking about things to improve as well. So it’s been good, it’s been a good time. But the initial thing is getting him over the confidence thing.”

It’s a normal problem to have, though. No player is perfect, after all.

“Losing your confidence, everybody has it. It’s the toughest thing in a way because there isn’t really a set trigger that gets you out of it. Winning matches is really what it comes down to, but if you’re feeling nervous and playing tight, sometimes it doesn’t always happen,” Ferreira said. “But it’s also one of those things that doesn’t take a lot to turn around as well. It’s just finding that happy medium somewhere. For him it was more just playing a few more matches in a row, that was helpful. But when the matches are tighter, playing the big points well, it’s a confidence thing.”

One of the things the Cilic camp has been focussing on is his first-serve percentage. Ferreira feels that when Cilic lands his first delivery, he can win a lot of ‘free points’, get through his service games more easily, and build more confidence that way as well. In addition to his Croatian holiday, Cilic also spent a week where Ferreira lives — in Hilton Head — to get to know one another even better and continue working on his game.

“It’s been so far really positive in every sense. Wayne is a great guy, really down to earth and a very, very smart person as well. He had an amazing career,” Cilic said. “The way he played, I admired it a lot. He was a hard worker on court and he brings that every single time when I’m on the court, so it’s just a joy to work with him and hopefully we can have a really long relationship, and an extremely successful one, too.”

Ferreira says since he hasn’t been travelling the Tour, he has been keen to pay close attention to all the players, practices and so on. And with what he sees in Cilic, he is plenty confident that things will move in the right direction.

“He strikes the ball so impressively well. It’s so clean and so hard, he is very solid everywhere. There’s no weakness in his game at all. He’s very strong mentally. Okay, he struggled a little bit on the confidence, but he’s very focussed. His groundstrokes are great. He has the ability to beat anybody,” Ferreira said. “He has the ability to come out and just play awesome, perfect tennis.”

Even if his ATP Ranking has slightly dipped, as soon as Cilic gathers momentum, that will be a scary thought for the rest of the ATP Tour.

Andy Murray and Feliciano Lopez took the title in their debut outing as a team two months ago at the Fever-Tree Championships. They continued their unbeaten streak on Tuesday at the Coupe Rogers in Montreal, saving a match point in their first-round upset over second seeds Lukasz Kubot and Marcelo Melo 6-7(5), 6-3, 11-9.

”In the Match Tie-break, it felt like we were hitting so many good shots and not getting rewarded for it,” said Murray. “It was tight at the end, but we did well to get through.”

Lopez erased a match point with an ace at 8/9 in the Match Tie-break before his team advanced in one hour 58 minutes. Their draw doesn’t get any easier as they face Roland Garros finalists Jeremy Chardy and Fabrice Martin in the next round.

”Whenever I play with Andy, it’s a lot of fun,” said Lopez. “Today was very special as well. I think we deserved the win because we played well overall.”

Defending champions Henri Kontinen and John Peers became the first seeded team to prevail this week in Montreal. The sixth seeds completed a wild 6-7(3), 6-2, 15-13 win over Radu Albot and Karen Khachanov by saving two match points at 10/11 and 12/13 in the Match Tie-break. Kontinen/Peers will now face Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos, who also saved a match point at 4-5, 40/40 in the second set to defeat Ivan Dodig and Filip Polasek 3-6, 7-6(5), 10-3.

Rohan Bopanna and Denis Shapovalov scored a 4-6, 6-1, 10-6 comeback victory over fourth seeds and Wimbledon finalists Nicolas Mahut and Edouard Roger-Vasselin. Bopanna/Shapovalov recorded their first ATP Tour doubles final as a team this June in Stuttgart (l. Peers/Soares).

Benoit Paire and Stan Wawrinka saved four set points to close out their 6-4, 7-6(7) win over Fabio Fognini and Lucas Pouille. Paire/Wawrinka fought back from 3/6 and 6/7 in the second-set tie-break to advance in one hour and 20 minutes. Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury rallied from 2-5 in the second set and saved two set points at 4-5 en route to a 7-5, 7-5 victory against Jamie Murray and Neal Skupski.

Rounding out the day were Canadian wild cards Peter Polansky and Brayden Schnur, who moved past Marcus Daniell and Laslo Djere 6-4, 7-6(3).

Alexander Zverev finished with the trophy at the Coupe Rogers in Montreal two years ago, beating Roger Federer to ensure the Swiss would have to wait at least another two years to win his first Montreal title.

It wasn’t as pretty as his 2017 title run, but the third-seeded German fought like a champion again on Tuesday to screech out a win against Brit Cameron Norrie 7-6(4), 6-4.

“It was fun going out on this court again. I hope I play many more matches this week here. We’ll see how it goes, but I’m happy with the start,” Zverev said.

The 22-year-old recovered from disappointments within the match to extend his stay at the Canadian ATP Masters 1000 tournament. The World No. 7 led 5-6, 40/0 in the first set but was pushed to deuce and faced a set point. He didn’t panic, however, and later controlled the tie-break.

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The three-time Masters 1000 titlist loosened up in the second, hitting a tweener to win the point of the match and delivering a backhand laser to bring up three match points. Zverev will next meet 13^th seed Nikoloz Basilashvili, who beat the German in the Hamburg European Open semi-finals last month en route to his third ATP 500 title. The Georgian beat Jan-Lennard Struff 2-6, 6-2, 6-3.

Brit Kyle Edmund ended the six-match winning streak of Nick Kyrgios 6-3, 6-4. The Aussie won his second ATP 500 title of the year on Sunday at the Citi Open in Washington, D.C., notching two Top 10 wins along the way (Tsitsipas, Medvedev).

“It was obviously very tricky playing Nick… He’s got a very good serve, probably one of the best on Tour. It’s a mini battle in itself, trying to get that back,” Edmund said. “I managed my game well, I served very well today. I thought I just controlled the points with balls in play. It was a really good win for me.”

Edmund will meet eighth seed Daniil Medvedev, who fell to Kyrgios in the Citi Open title match. The top Brit leads their FedEx ATP Head2Head series 2-0, but they haven’t played since the 2018 Mutua Madrid Open.