Rafael Nadal believes he has a chance of returning to world number one by end of the year, following his victory in the Rogers Cup in Montreal.
The Spanish ace took just over an hour to crush home favourite Milos Raonic 6-2 6-2 to claim his eighth title and fourth Masters 1000 win of the year.
This after returning from a seven month injury lay-off in February, and the 27-year-old has now set his sights on overhauling current world number one Novak Djokovic.
Nadal defeated Djokovic in the semi-finals on his way to glory in Montreal and believes there may just be enough tournaments left to take top spot before the year is out.
“I feel I have an advantage, but not enough to say that I am the favourite,” he said.
“On this kind of surface, Novak is really good. There remains three Masters 1000s, one grand slam, World Tour Finals – more favourable surfaces for him than for me. So we are talking about 6,500 points.
“We have to realise how many points I have to win to be number one. I think I will not be number one if I have less than 10,000 points at the end of the season. Today I have 8,000. I need to win minimum 2,000 more.
“That’s very difficult in this part of the season, but I’m going to try.”
Following his victory at the weekend, Nadal will move back to three in the world rankings and will continue his preparation the US Open by playing in Cincinnati.
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