MADRID — On 20 October 2006, Tomas Berdych shocked defending champion Rafael Nadal 6-3, 7-6 in the quarter-finals of the Madrid Masters 1000 at the Madrid Arena, silencing a fiercely partisan home crowd by putting a finger to his lips after match point. The victory on indoor hard courts gave the Czech, then ranked No 11, a 3-1 lead in his head-to-head record against the world No 2 and cemented his early reputation as a bad boy of the tour.
Berdych played at a very high level from the start to take the opening set 6-3, then held his focus despite irritation at the crowd cheering Nadal’s winners and his own errors. Pushed into a tie-break, he earned a first match point after a lucky guess, mocked Nadal’s demonstrative celebration, and sealed victory when Nadal failed to return his first serve before turning to the stands with the shush gesture. “You are a bad person,” Nadal told him at the net. Berdych later said: “I can understand they want him to win the match and the tournament, but this is not a Davis Cup where you can expect this,” adding, “This is the kind of game I like, that he’s running behind the baseline and hitting balls just over the net so I could go in and volley or stay back and play from the baseline.”
Nadal arrived in Madrid as the local favourite and defending champion, having beaten Ivan Ljubicic from two-sets-to-love down in the 2005 final (3-6, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-6) and ranked No 2 since July 2005 after his first Roland-Garros title. The Spaniard had already won 12 titles on clay, including the French Open finals against Mariano Puerta in 2005 (6-7, 6-3, 6-1, 7-5) and Roger Federer in 2006 (1-6, 6-1, 6-4, 7-6), and had reached the Wimbledon final in 2006. Berdych, meanwhile, had announced himself by beating world No 1 Federer at the Athens Olympics in 2004 (4-6, 7-5, 7-5), winning his maiden title in Palermo against Filippo Volandri (6-3, 6-3) and the 2005 Paris Indoors against Ljubicic (6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 4-6, 6-4). He had already beaten Nadal twice in succession, in Cincinnati in 2005 (6-7, 6-2, 7-6) and Montreal in 2006 (6-1, 3-6, 6-2), after losing their first meeting in Bastad in 2004 (2-6, 6-2, 6-4).
The run ended abruptly as Berdych was defeated in the following round by Fernando Gonzalez 6-3, 6-1. Despite claiming he liked Nadal’s game, he would not beat the Spaniard again until the 2015 Australian Open, losing 18 consecutive matches in between, including the Wimbledon final in 2010 (6-3, 7-5, 6-4). The Madrid Masters, established in 2002 at the 12,000-capacity Madrid Arena and previously won by Andre Agassi, Juan Carlos Ferrero and Marat Safin, would remain a sore memory for the home faithful, while Nadal would go on to win all four Grand Slam tournaments and 22 majors in his career.