2006 US Open – Men's Singles Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros. Also, he reached a record-equalling 10th consecutive Grand Slam semifinal appearance (streak started at the 2004 Wimbledon Championships), after Rod Laver and Ivan Lendl. This tournament was Andre Agassi's last professional appearance. He played his last match against Benjamin Becker and retired after the US Open. Future champion Juan Martín del Potro made his first appearance in the main draw of the US Open. This was also the first Grand Slam tournament in which future World No. 1's Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray were seeded. They were seeded 20th and 17th respectively. The seeded players
Grand Slam (tennis) have more respect for history, ruled in 1982 that winning any four straight majors constituted a Grand Slam—and offered a $1 million bonus for it [...] But many tennis people, and most writers, and probably most fans, too, did not accept the new rules, and the I.T.F. has dropped the gimmick." Vecsey was only half right: the ITF dropped the "gimmick" of the cash bonus, but it had never changed any rules. However, the ambiguous way the ITF described the Grand Slam in their Constitution led to journalists continuing to make the same assumption as Vecsey over two decades later.