3 longest gaps between titles at the same ATP tournament
Rafael Nadal's straight-sets win over American Taylor Fritz at the 2020 ATP Acapulco Open was the Spaniard's third victory at the tournament, 15 years after winning his first.
Nadal won his third career singles title at the 2005 Acapulco Open, conceding just one game in a lopsided title match. Fast forward 15 years, and the Spaniard won the same tournament six years after it transitioned to hardcourt (in 2014).
You may also like: 3 talking points from the 2020 ATP Acapulco Open
This puts the Spaniard in an exclusive group of players containing his fellow Big 3 peers Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic to have won ATP titles at the same tournament more than a decade after winning their first.
On that note, let us have a look at where Nadal's Acapulco triumphs rank amongst the longest gaps between wins by a player at the same tournament in the Open Era.
#T3 Roger Federer - Wimbledon: 14 years (2003 - 2017)
Since making his Major breakthrough at Wimbledon 2003, Roger Federer won a further six titles at the grasscourt Grand Slam tournament in his next nine appearances at the tournament.
In the 2017 season, which saw Federer end his Major drought by winning his 18th Grand Slam title and fifth at the Australian Open, the then 35-year-old also went on to triumph at Wimbledon - five years after his seventh and latest win in 2012, and 14 years after his first.
That marked the longest gap in the Open Era for titles won by a player at a Grand Slam tournament, or for that matter at any tournament. Federer almost stretched this gap to 16 when he stood two consecutive championship points on serve against Novak Djokovic in a pulsating 2019 final, but blinked at the most inopportune moment to go down in the first-ever Wimbledon fifth-set tiebreak.
You may also like: 8 tournaments where Federer has had the most missed opportunities