Playing some of the most assured tennis of his career, Brandon Nakashima slowed Rafael Jódar’s roll Wednesday at the Canadian Open in Montreal, beating the red-hot teenager 7-6(3), 6-4 to advance to the biggest final of his career. The Canadian Open featured the first ATP Masters 1000 semifinal lineup of players all born in the 2000s. Nakashima, the oldest of the bunch at 25, flexed his experience and tactical know-how against his 19-year-old opponent.His win means Montreal will see the first all-American final at a Masters 1000 event, which is the level below a Grand Slam, since Andy Roddick defeated Mardy Fish at Cincinnati in 2003.Nakashima will play either Ben Shelton or Learner Tien, who face off in the second semifinal of the night, in his first final above an ATP 250-level event, the lowest of the three event tiers on the tour’s ladder of events. In June, he started working with Wayne Ferreira, the coach who previously helped Frances Tiafoe win two ATP titles and crack the top 10. Their partnership has paid dividends, as Nakashima moved through the draw in Montreal with bold, confident tennis. He’s 3-1 against top 20 players since June. The Californian wasted no time making his presence known Wednesday. The two are familiar with each other’s games, having played doubles together; both also played college tennis at Virginia, though they were years apart. Nakashima clearly had the scouting report on Jódar — he grabbed control of the match straightaway by depriving him of the topspin-heavy, cross-court forehands he so favors and drummed up a bushel of break points across Jódar’s early service games.Nakashima didn’t win those points, but his aggression forced Jódar into playing constant defense, and scrambling to find workaround after workaround took its toll on the teenager. Jódar, who’s reached at least the quarterfinals in seven of the last eight tournaments he’s played, finally looked like he was running low on energy.Across the net, Nakashima balanced his forceful return games with quick, easy holds thanks to impeccable placement on his serve. His chipping away at Jódar finally paid off in the first set tiebreak, when he took a 4-2 lead, clinched the set and rode that momentum to a 2-0 lead in the second set. The second set was more of the same. Nakashima dictated from the baseline and served with precision as Jódar asked the crowd for more noise, more energy, whenever he managed to win a big point and yelled in frustration when he lost one. The outbursts did help relieve some pressure, but mostly Nakashima tightened up as the prospect of making his first Masters 1000 final neared. He needed five match points to close it out, but when he finally did, Nakashima did it in style — with a laser beam serve shot to the very corner of the service box before raising his arms in victory.