He didn’t have the same relaxed posture, he didn’t have that serious but serene face. Anyone who looked at Rafa Nadal when Philippe Chatrier came in to warm up before Alexander Zverev’s match did not see the usual Rafa Nadal. It could be a mere optical illusion, it could be the fact of playing with the roof closed due to the rain, it could still be the problem in the left foot that in an image published by the Marca newspaper said more than a thousand words. He was not the usual Nadal and the start of the match would show it (without detracting from the German, who was almost perfect). Thus, the doubt was no longer about the superiority of the Spanish, but about his resistance capacity.
Nadal even had a comfortable lead in the head-to-head matchup with Zverev: 6-3 in the previous nine matches between the two, 4-1 on clay, 1-0 in Grand Slam matches. And he had already caught his “scare” in this edition of Roland Garros, beating Félix Auger-Aliassime in just five sets before putting on the best match of the tournament against Djokovic (the German faced his difficulties against Estoril Open champion Sebastián Báez, having the most consistent display in the quarters against Carlitos Alcaraz). However, Zverev was eager to reach another Grand Slam final after losing to Dominic Thiem at the 2020 US Open. even being against Nadal.
“My father, Sergi Bruguera and I watched Nadal train and suddenly the right one is 20 miles per hour faster. Move lighter. there is something in this court that makes you play 30% better, just being in it court. Novak is finding his form too, he has been playing better and better and he was fantastic in Rome. Those are still the number one and number two favorites for me.” “I really hope that he recovers 100% and can be at Roland Garros, he still has ten days to try to recover,” he said at the end of the Rome Open, where he came in the middle losing to Tsitsipas, on the Spanish chronicle. . left foot injury that put him in doubt for the tournament.
The current number 3 in the world could reach number 2 beating Medvedev if he beat the Spanish and his great goal was to reach the leadership of the national team for the first time in his career. classification world championship if he won a Grand Slam for the first time in his career. However, he ended up falling in the worst possible way, with an injury that caused him to retire in the second establish (and when they had already played three hours). And Nadal, who turned 35 this Friday, qualified for the 14th time for the Roland Garros final, despite not having the result he wanted and how it was clearly noticeable in his expression when he realized the problem.
The game started immediately with the first break Zverev at Nadal’s service, scoring four points in a row after the initial 30-0 and confirming the 2-0 at his service. The German seemed like a machine, because of the power of his shots, because of the precision with which he placed the ball in the angles and lines, because of the service that made the difference. The sixth and seventh games were even closed blank by both but the current began to change, the resistance of the Spanish made the German fail more and in the second point of break Nadal made it 4-4, putting everything back to square one for an atypical ending in game 10, when the Spaniard made a mistake where he doesn’t usually make mistakes, he wasted three set points in the rival’s service and had to annul two points from break at your service The decision would be tie-breaker with 10-8 for Nadal, after seeing Zverev put his right back into action but with four set points canceled from 2 to 6.
An hour and a half later, the first half was resolved in a way that seemed to catapult Nadal to another level, an idea confirmed with four straight points served by Zverev, who immediately opened the 1-0 lead. However, this would only be a mere appearance: the German did it again. breakthe spanish got another breakthe german responded in the same way and only in the fifth game no one managed to secure his serve, followed by three more breaks who put the number 3 in the world at the service to be able to close the establish. What happened? plus one break of Nadal. The Asturian would win his serve for the first time, but with 6-5 for the German and 40-30 for the Asturian on his serve, Zverev suffered an injury to his right foot that forced him to get out of a wheelchair court.
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Source: Observadora
