Final (9.30 h., Eurosport)
The Spaniard is looking for his second title in Melbourne against Medvedev and will take advantage of Federer and Djokovic in the fight for the largest number of majors. Both the Swiss and the Serbian failed in previous opportunities
That man with a gesture of full concentration eating an energy bar is one win away from being the first tennis player in history to win 21 Grand Slam titles. So far. So close. It is only one victory, after the six achieved in this Australian Open where he has returned to certify a spectacular comeback, but he will have to achieve it against Daniil Medvedev, an adversary of care, perhaps the worst that could be found, ignored Novak Djokovic, nine times champion of the tournament and this time absent for reasons that have little to do with tennis.
That man, Rafael Nadal, was already close to achieving the goal in the last edition of Roland Garros, the tournament that he has won 13 times, but then he crossed paths Nole in the semifinals and it ended up being the Serbian who climbed into the 20 box, where he is also Roger Federer, long time away from the tracks and no return date, if it ever occurs.
In the close race that the three maintain, the Swiss was the first who had the opportunity to claim the exclusivity of glimpse the horizon alone, up there. no less than two match points was able to create in the Wimbledon final, the tournament he has won eight times, in 2019, against Djokovic, but the Balkan got rid of them with courage and precision and continued his harvest, while dealing a blow of dimensions not yet fully known to the genius of Basel.
The train was also going to pass in front of Nole. And again he will do it without stopping. The night of last September 13 had the aroma of the greatest ever experienced in this sport, because, in addition to being one victory away, like Nadal this Sunday, as at the time, twice only one ball away, Federer, from crowning the twenty-first summit, the player from Belgrade could certify something almost never seen: chaining the four Grand Slam titles in the same year, something that only Rod Laver (1962 and 1969) and Donald Budge (1938) had achieved.
Only two ‘intruders’
The 21st is thus elusive with the holy trinity of this game and it is possible that reaching it will not be enough, because, whatever happens this Sunday (09.30, Eurosport), the dispute will continue, at least with the two men who have been distributed 12 of the last 14 majors since Nadal won again at 2018 Roland Garros. only Dominic Thiem, champion of the US Open in 2019, already through a pandemic, and Daniil Medvedev, champions on the same stage last summer, have been able to meddle in the particular volatta between Spanish and Serbian.
At 35 years and 241 days old, Nadal aspires to be the third oldest tennis player to win the Australian Open, a tournament from which he only emerged victorious in 2009 and in which he has lost four finals: two against Djokovic, one against Federer and another versus Wawrinka.Melbourne is witnessing the umpteenth resurrection of a player who is trying to extend his activity on the courts after the recurrence of an old chronic ailment in the scaphoid of his left foot. Nadal, who has won three of his four matches against Medvedev and got his nineteenth major Against him in the 2019 US Open final, she will need her entire arsenal this time to stop him.
The Russian is much more of a tennis player than he was then, already struggling in the stakes of this range, a year after losing the final against Djokovic. I settled accounts with him in the aforementioned event in New York and has 13 consecutive victories in the Grand Slam tournaments. No one has beaten him in them since he did Hubert Hurkacz in the round of 16 at Wimbledon.
Nadal, who disputes his twenty-ninth final of a major, has experience on his side and his well-earned aura of irreducibility, but he is up against an opponent who is limestone. Near the age of 26, Medvedev wears autocratic manners on the hard court. He is not, far from it, one of those who are scared, no matter how much history he has on the other side of the tape, as he has already shown. Unlike players like Stefanos Tsitsipas, Alexander Zverev or Dominic Thiem, the Muscovite, with a tennis far removed from academicism, has been the first to articulate a solvent speech, to earn maximum respect and instill fear among any of his opponents.
After beating in the second round Nick Kyrgios and the local fans and lift two adverse sets and a match point in the quarterfinals against Felix Auger-Aliassime, Medvedev feels stronger than ever. Tsitsipas was little more than an anecdote in the semifinals. The man who soured Djokovic’s most beautiful night wants to stop the course of history again.
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