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Rafael Nadal gets doubles wild card into Rogers Cup in Montreal

At the Rogers Cup in Montreal in 2009, Nadal teamed up with coach Francisco Roig in doubles – and defeated Novak Djokovic in the first round. (Stephanie Myles/opencourt.ca)

Rafael Nadal has had some interesting doubles partners at the Rogers Cup over the years.

Notably, he teamed up with Novak Djokovic in Toronto in 2010 – an all-star dubs team if ever there was one – and ended up drawing a Canadian wild-card team in the first round.

The two "kids", Milos Raonic and Vasek Pospisil, aged 19 and 20 and a still a few years away from breaking through on the ATP Tour, ended up beating them.

At the Rogers Cup in 2010, the all-star team of Nadal and Djokovic lost to a couple of kids named Raonic and Pospisil. (Stephanie Myles/opencourt.ca)
At the Rogers Cup in 2010, the all-star team of Nadal and Djokovic lost to a couple of kids named Raonic and Pospisil. (Stephanie Myles/opencourt.ca)

The previous year, wanting to play in Montreal but without a partner – it's hard to imagine anyone turning him down, but perhaps he didn't ask – he ended up teaming up with his part-time coach, Francisco Roig.

Roig, then 41, hadn't played a doubles match at the ATP Tour level since 2001, when he partnered with a young Feliciano Lopez to qualify and reach the final at an event in Mallorca. Still, the two defeated Djokovic and doubles specialist Dusan Vemic in straight sets before dropping a tight one, 10-8 in the match tiebreak, to the accomplished pair of Max Mirnyi and Andy Ram.

This time around, Nadal has gone more conventional as he will pair up with countryman Fernando Verdasco, a lefty-lefty combination that could do some damage if they're in the mood.

Tennis Canada has awarded the other doubles wild card to a pair of Canadians, Adil Shamasdin and Philip Bester, who are teaming up for the second time; they played the Rogers Cup in Toronto in 2012, losing in a match tiebreak to singles players Gilles Simon and Jérémy Chardy in the first round.

In other doubles news, Daniel Nestor will play with Frenchman Edouard Roger-Vasselin (they are scheduled to pair up in Cincinnati and the US Open as well), while recent partner Leander Paes will play with another top singles player, Andy Murray.

(Nestor and Murray played this week in Washington, D.C., but lost their first match to the No. 3 seeds, Rohan Bopanna – another Nestor partner from the beginning of the season – and Florin Mergea).

Few of the other singles players – crowd-pleasers like Gaël Monfils, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Stan Wawrinka, signed on for doubles. The only pairing of note is David Goffin of Belgium and rising youngster Dominic Thiem of Austria.

Jo-Wilfred Tsonga has teamed up with notable partners over the years, including Stan Wawrinka and Michael Llodra (seen here in 2009). But he's not playing doubles this year. (Stephanie Myles/opencourt.ca)
Jo-Wilfred Tsonga has teamed up with notable partners over the years, including Stan Wawrinka and Michael Llodra (seen here in 2009). But he's not playing doubles this year. (Stephanie Myles/opencourt.ca)

Even Pospisock – as Canadian Vasek Pospisil and American partner Jack Sock have come to be known – didn't enter the doubles by the deadline, although they could always sign in on site, as they did in Atlanta last week. So far, Pospisil and Sock haven't yet entered the Masters 1000 event in Cincinnati, or the US Open.