ITF

32 ITFWORLD WINTER 2017 Given the contrasting directions which the men's and women's games took in 2017, the year's concluding Grand Slam tournament finished in appropriate fashion, says Paul Newman. R afael Nadal's US Open triumph completed a remarkable comeback year for the Spaniard and his long-time rival, Roger Federer, who shared the season's four Grand Slam trophies, while Sloane Stephens' victory underlined what a season of change it had been in the women's game. Nadal was a worthy champion, but his cause was helped by the fact that five of the world's top 11 men failed to make the start line because of injury. Novak Djokovic, Stan Wawrinka and Kei Nishikori had all announced in the summer that they would miss the rest of the year, Milos Raonic pulled out five days before the tournament began and Andy Murray withdrew three days later. Since winning his last Grand Slam title at Roland Garros in 2014, Nadal himself had repeatedly suffered injury setbacks, but everything changed with his improved fitness in 2017. Runner- up to Federer at the Australian Open, he had gone on to win his tenth French Open and arrived at Flushing Meadows having just returned to the top of the world rankings. Nadal was not at his best in the early rounds, but rediscovered some of his best form with crushing victories over Alexandr Dolgopolov and the 19-year-old Russian, Andrey Rublev, who had beaten Grigor Dimitrov and David Goffin en route to his first Grand Slam quarterfinal. From the moment the draw was made there had been talk of a potential semifinal showdown between top of the heap in nYC US OPEN His third US Open title capped an outstanding season for Rafael Nadal It was a breakthrough tournament for Keys

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