2006 Rafael Nadal tennis season



The 2006 Rafael Nadal tennis season started in February as Nadal missed the Australian Open because of a foot injury. Nadal won five singles titles in 2006.

Hard court
In February, Nadal lost in the semifinals of the first tournament he played, the Open 13 tournament in Marseille, France. Two weeks later, he handed Roger Federer his first loss of the year in the final of the Dubai Tennis Championships (in 2006, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray were the only two men who defeated Federer), thus ending Federer’s 56-match winning streak on hard courts. To complete the spring hard-court season, Nadal was upset in both the semifinals of the Indian Wells Masters by James Blake, and in the second round of the Miami Masters by Carlos Moyá, who thus ended Nadal's 22-match win streak over fellow Spaniard players.

Clay season
On European clay, Nadal won all four tournaments he entered and 24 consecutive matches. He defeated Federer in the final of the Monte Carlo Masters in four sets. The following week, he defeated Tommy Robredo in the final of the Open Sabadell Atlántico tournament in Barcelona. After a one-week break, Nadal won the Italian Masters, defeating Federer in a fifth-set tiebreaker in the final, after saving two match points and equaling Björn Borg's tally of 16 ATP titles won as a teenager. Nadal broke Argentinian Guillermo Vilas's 29-year male record of 53 consecutive clay-court match victories by beating Robin Söderling in the first round of the French Open.

Nadal went on to face Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinals, the first-ever meeting of their historic rivalry, which Nadal won via a retirement from Djokovic after Nadal took the first two sets. He then beat Ivan Ljubičić to set up a final against Federer. The first two sets of the match were hardly competitive, as the rivals traded 6–1 sets. Nadal won the third set easily and served for the match in the fourth set before Federer broke him and forced a tiebreaker. Nadal won the tiebreaker and became the first player to defeat Federer in a Grand Slam tournament final.

Nadal injured his shoulder while playing a quarterfinal match against Lleyton Hewitt at the Artois Championships, played on grass at the Queen's Club in London. Nadal was unable to complete the match, which ended his 26-match winning streak.

Wimbledon
Nadal was seeded second at Wimbledon, but was two points from defeat against American qualifier Robert Kendrick in the second round before coming back to win in five sets. In the third round, Nadal defeated world No. 20 Andre Agassi in straight sets in Agassi's last career match at Wimbledon. Nadal also won his next three matches in straight sets, which set up his first Wimbledon final, which was against Federer, who had won this tournament the three previous years. Nadal was the first Spanish man since Manuel Santana in 1966, to reach the Wimbledon final, but Federer won the match in four sets to win his fourth consecutive Wimbledon title.

US Open Series
During the lead up to the US Open, Nadal played the two Masters Series tournaments in North America. He was upset in the third round of the Rogers Cup in Toronto and in the quarterfinals of the Cincinnati Masters by Juan Carlos Ferrero. Nadal was seeded second at the US Open, but lost in the quarterfinals to world No. 54 Mikhail Youzhny of Russia in four sets.

Nadal played only three tournaments for the remainder of the year. Joachim Johansson, ranked world No. 690, upset Nadal in the second round of the Stockholm Open. The following week, Nadal lost to Tomáš Berdych in the quarterfinals of the year's last Masters Series tournament, the Madrid Masters. During the round-robin stage of the year-ending Tennis Masters Cup, Nadal lost to James Blake but defeated Nikolay Davydenko and Robredo. Because of those two victories, Nadal qualified for the semifinals, where he lost to Federer. This was Nadal's third loss in nine career matches with Federer.

Year end ranking
Nadal went on to become the first player since Andre Agassi in 1994–95 to finish the year as the world No. 2 in consecutive years.