The second day of the ATP World Tour Finals provided an upset as David Goffin (7) defeated Rafael Nadal (1) in an enthralling encounter.
Goffin defeated the World no. 1 in three sets by 7-6 (7-5), 6-7 (4-7), 6-4 as two tie-breakers were required to find a winner in the first two sets.
After twice relinquishing the lead in the first set before crawling back to take it through a tie break, a sixth double fault of the day saw Goffin hand Nadal the advantage, to come back from 0-40 in the next game and take the second set via a tie-break.
The match which lasted for more than two hours wasn’t short of excitement but the Spaniard struggled through a knee injury which saw him withdraw from the Paris Masters, against the very impressive Belgian.
In the deciding set, Goffin raced into a 4-1 lead but Nadal clawed right back to 4-3 before Goffin sealed victory with an ace on the fifth match point.
The other game of the day saw Grigor Dimitrov (6) beat Dominic Thiem (4) 6-3, 5-7, 7-5 in the opening game of the day in another fierce encounter between the top seeds.
The Bulgarian sixth saw off the Austrian fourth seed Thiem in three dramatic sets on his ATP Finals debut after two hours.
Dimitrov had the edge for most of the contest, breaking serve once to win the first set and not facing a break point until the end of the second.
However, Thiem drew level in the 12th game to force a third set before breaking back when Dimitrov served for the match at 5-4 in the decider.
